The Police

Sting made no secret of the debt. "'So Lonely' was unabashedly culled from 'No Woman No Cry' by Bob Marley & The Wailers," he admitted in a 2000 interview. "Same chorus." Marley's arrival in Britain had shown him a bass could carry a song's emotional center while the rhythm loped instead of drove, and reggae's standing among punk audiences gave a jazz-trained trio room to slow down. "What we invented," he said, "was this thing of going back and forth between thrash punk and reggae" — the niche that turned three virtuosos into a hit band.

listen: upstream & heresource: Rockcelebrities.net — Revolver interview, 2000 (Sting on "So Lonely" and Bob Marley) ↗share

1975

No Woman, No CryBob Marley

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1978

So LonelyThe Police

listen forPlay Marley's 1975 live "No Woman, No Cry" against "So Lonely" and the theft sits right in the chord cycle — the same unhurried lift into the chorus. Marley's band settles into a rocksteady sway; The Police race the verses into a thrash-punk clatter, Copeland's hi-hat snapping like a ratchet, before dropping the tempo and distortion for the chorus, where Sting's bass carries Marley's patience straight through the noise.

Punk didn't shape The Police's sound so much as clear the runway for it. "Punk had opened people's minds to the idea that you don't have to sound like ELO, ABBA or any of the huge commercially successful acts of the day," Copeland said. Sting credited the Sex Pistols directly, telling one interviewer the band "kicked the doors down" and "paved the way for The Police." The trio played fast enough to pass as punk even as reggae and jazz harmony crept into the arrangements, and Copeland later admitted the scene saw through it, branding them fakes for capitalizing on their extra years of musical training.

listen: upstream & heresource: Far Out Magazine — Sting on the Sex Pistols paving the way for The Police ↗share

1976

Anarchy in the U.K.Sex Pistols

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1978

Can't Stand Losing YouThe Police

listen forSet "Anarchy in the U.K." against "Can't Stand Losing You" and you can hear The Police borrowing punk's speed without its simplicity. Both tracks race at a similar clip, Copeland's drums every bit as relentless as the Pistols'. But underneath, Sting's bass keeps finding a reggae-inflected off-beat, and Andy Summers rings out chords with more harmonic color than a three-chord thrash song would ever need.

Long before The Police existed, a teenage Andy Summers hunched over a record player, lifting and dropping the needle until he'd worked out Wes Montgomery's entire solo on "West Coast Blues" by ear. "In a sense I've been recreating that Wes Montgomery solo for the rest of my life," he said decades later. That apprenticeship, not the blues scales most rock guitarists leaned on, built his ear: "My phrasing and sense of time all came out of American jazz." It's why a self-described "fake punk band" could get away with chords no punk band would touch.

listen: upstream & heresource: Jazz Journal — Andy Summers shows his jazz roots (Wes Montgomery "West Coast Blues" transcription) ↗share

1960

West Coast BluesWes Montgomery

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1979

Message in a BottleThe Police

listen forMontgomery's "West Coast Blues" moves through harmony far more layered than a standard blues shuffle, his lines gliding through changes rather than bending a scale. Cue up "Message in a Bottle" and hear Summers do something structurally related with rock instrumentation: instead of strumming the riff, guitar journalists have long noted, he arpeggiates extended chords — added ninths ringing against each other — turning a guitar hook into something closer to a jazz voicing than a power chord.