The Police.Photo:Brian Rasic/Getty
Brian Rasic/Getty
“Roxanne"might be a classic now, but one member of the Police didn’t always think it would be a hit.
In an interview withThe Bob Lefsetz Podcast, Stewart Copeland revealed he initially thought the 1978 track was a “throwaway song.”
“We were struggling and starving and going nowhere for about a year and a half, and [Sting] wrote it without any agenda,” the band’s drummer, 71, recalled. “It was certainly not a Police song because we were still theoretically a punk band.”
At that time, Copeland wanted the band to stick to its punk rock ethos, however Sting, 72, and guitarist Andy Summers, envisioned exploring sounds without limitations.
“I was the one cracking the punk whip,” he said during the conversation. “No, we’ve got to be punk. We’ve got to be punk. And they’re saying, ‘Can’t we just play?’”
Sting, according to Copeland, “secretly” shared his idea for “Roxanne” with Summers, and after he was excited about it, the song landed in the drummer’s hands.
“I gave it a drum beat that was kind of bass-ackwards and made it into a Police song,” Copeland explained. “It wasn’t punk-o-rama, but it was still a rock song, even though it was kind of a lament.”
But the drummer still wasn’t sold on the tune. “It was a throwaway song,” he said.
Stewart Copeland of The Police in New York City in October 2023.Roy Rochlin/Getty
Roy Rochlin/Getty
That’s what he believed, until his brother, Miles Copeland — who was, at the time, the band’s manager — convinced him “Roxanne” had potential.
“He hears it, ‘Folks are going to love this. And I don’t care if it’s any good or not, but I do know folks are going to love this,'" Stewart said.
Stewart continued: “He took it and he said, ‘I’ll take that to a record company,’ And they said, ‘OK, we’ll release that as a single.’ And the rest is history.”
The song eventually became the “Every Breath You Take” band’s breakthrough hit.
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Stewart Copeland of The Police.Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty
Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty
Inan interview with PEOPLEin May 2023, the “Desert Rose” musician opened up about the inspiration behind “Roxanne” — prostitutes and the 1897 Edmond Rostand playCyrano de Bergerac.
“Those two conflicting ideas — of this beautiful name and this very, very elegant, courtly romance, and what was going on in the hotel — just lit a torch under me,” he said. “I went to my room, picked up the guitar and imagined this woman into life.”
source: people.com
