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Intro

The Police didn’t hesitate to dial up the dark. Whether it be literally in Darkness, by threatening suicide in Can’t Stand Losing You (with the single cover implying it happened), or delivering among the most disturbing new wave lyrics with Once Upon a Daydream🔖✔. But they often had optimism lurking in their machine, adding rays of hope to their material. Their go-to tools for this are deflection and reframing.

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Humorous Deflection

The Police were experts at using humor to defuse the scenarios spelled out in their songs. For instance, in Synchronicity II🔖✔ they paint a picture of a man about to have a nervous breakdown, but lets steam out of the pressure cooker with a lurking Lochness Monster, and classic lines like “every meeting with a so-called superior is like a humiliating kick in the crotch”. This method of giving sociopolitical commentary was quite effective, with even recent bands like Yard Act🔖✔ following suit.

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da

Long before songs like Blues Traveler’s Hook, the Police poked fun at the power of word salad in De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da. The title alone ensures it will have a nursery rhyme, baby babble feel to it, amusing both child and adult listeners🔖✔ and scoring a top-ten hit. The verses have a quietly tense, almost ominous rhythm section, with Sting seriously discussing how low-quality content (with inflection) are used to get the girl and win elections. But the leadup to the chorus mitigates this by Sting climbing the vocal register and delivering the pun “logic ties you up”. Then the song title and upbeat two-note guitar stab disarm the listener and allow them to vent by chuckling at a serious problem. That release is key. The band doesn’t solve manipulative language, they make it bearable. The exaggerations allow the listener to not be overwhelmed by it.

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Be My Girl - Sally

In Be My Girl, Sting expresses deep pangs of loneliness, asking Sally to go out with him urgently and repeatedly. Copeland and Summer back up this emotion with a power-pop sound, complete with pounding guitar riffs and drum hits with locomotive speed and persistence. It’s all done effectively but risks running out of gas quick until Sting sees an ad for an inflatable doll that starts speaking to him in a creepy salesman voice. He finds salvation and treats her like his wife. The subsequent sexual double entendres (when I’m feeling naughty I blow her up with air) make Be My Girl absurdly hilarious while still making commentary on loneliness. The Police reprise this theme,, most notably in The Bed's Too Big Without You🔖✔ with “I made love to my pillow but it didn’t feel right”. This is all quite funny, but it also prevents the song from veering into self-pity schlock and allows the listener to engage without turning away.

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Can't Stand Losing You

From the Police’s debut album came one of its darkest numbers in I Can’t Stand Losing You. This song’s full of suicidal ideation. In the face of the subject matter, the Police soften the emotional blow by leaning into absurd exaggeration. For instance, the line “your brother’s going to kill me and he’s six-feet-ten”. Another line of note: despite the narrator’s bad headspace, he calls out that his ex scratched up specifically his LP (long-play) records. And the reggae-styled rhythm and classic rock guitar riffs in the chorus may not be the most upbeat. But typically heard in socioeconomic tales by the Clash or the Jam, in this particular song it purposely undercuts the mental health theme to give balance. “I guess you’d call suicide” gives the narrator’s threats a performative tone, less like despair and more like “I’ll show you”. These moments prevent listeners from wallowing in the pain because the lyrical and sonic sands keep shifting.

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Positive Reframing

Besides offering release through amusement, the Police were also adept at showing you the bright side of dire situations (it’s true: Howard Jones doesn’t have a monopoly on this). Rather than defusing tension, the Police reshaped it: keeping the stakes intact, but altering how those stakes feel.

Walking in Your Footsteps

On their last album, the Police upped the darkness ante with Walking in Your Footsteps by discussing the Cold War🔖✔. Aware that the ‘80s already had plenty of songs about this, Sting takes a unique tack by taking a role of a wide-eyed child, asking his favorite dinosaurs what they did wrong in becoming extinct, so that humanity doesn’t follow in their footsteps. The slower pace, and gentle, faux-African flutes and drumbeats invoke dinosaurs plodding through the jungle with a storybook calm. The Police eschew the usual tense vocals and melodies of Cold War songs (think Major Tom🔖✔), with an emphatic-but-relaxed delivery. This reframing serves to lower the emotional heat of the song (something Sting solo does often). Footsteps ends with “the meek shall inherit the earth” as a gentle reminder that cooler heads will help us avoid extinction. The Police are not saving the day, but keeping us calm so that we can save the day.

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Walking on the Moon

The Police express their frustration about emotional distance in a romantic relationship in Walking on the Moon. This song topic had already been been used a lot in rock and even new wave, but the Police deftly and effectively use an immersive moonwalk metaphor to keep it fresh. The sonics and vocals are purposely sparse to mimic the expansive void of space. Also, the usually-tight Police guitar riffs are instead drawn-out and have heavy reverb to simulate the slowness of moving around with the Moon’s low gravity. And Walking even has a Zen quality, lightening the subject matter. That shift matters. Lunar/being invisible double entendres like “My feet don't hardly make no sound” are among the most clever in new wave. While Sting gets a few jabs in lyrically to remind us what the song is really about, like with “I hope my leg don’t break”. Instead of emphasizing absence or loss, the song turns distance into something almost meditative.

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When the World is Running Down (You Make the Best of What's Still around)

It’s only fitting to conclude with the underrated album track When the World is Running Down, which still gets radioplay on indie stations like Chicago’s WXRT. The Police establish a dark backdrop for this song: Sting is bunkered away, either because of an ongoing apocalypse or severe agoraphobia. But being a music lover, he watches James Brown concerts and even records his own music to make the best of the situation. Even the title carries this reframing logic - when the world is running down, the response isn’t to resist, but to live differently within it. The verses actually lean upbeat - Sting’s bass guitar and Copeland’s drums move along at a brisk pace. And Sting appropriately sings in a fast, clipped manner. After all, he’s been alone for ages and is now describing his passion to you. In the chorus, he’s reminded of the dire situation outside and defeat creeps in his voice. But the galloping rhythm section and guitar stabs remain the same, allowing Sting to regroup and return to his music routine to cope. The world may be shrinking, but the experience of living in it is kept steady, even purposeful.

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Outro

The Police didn’t eliminate tension - they redirected it. Whether through humor that undercut their darkest ideas or reframing that made those ideas manageable, they rarely let a song collapse under its own weight. Instead, they kept it moving. That balance. between unease and control, darkness and lift, is what makes their music endure. The world may be running down, but in the Police’s hands, it never quite feels like the end.

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