The Police: "Invisible Sun"

1 October 1981

"These are the goods! After the most hypnotic intro of the week (Sting takes a leaf out of Bryan Ferry's book), the song develops the kind of creamy propulsion that might give psychedelia a good name."

— Ian Birch

Given that Sting would go on to compose "Every Breath You Take", "Russians" and "Shape of My Heart" and considering he rarely looks especially pleased with himself, you might assume that Gordon Sumner was always something of a grumpy old git. And, let's face it, that's probably what he always has been. Yet, there was a time when he knew how to play the pop game. While The Police were hardly the youngest act around, they took to promoting videos of themselves right from the beginning. They may have been the new wave act with the most baby boomer appeal but they weren't above appearing on the cover of Smash Hits.

But this wasn't to last. "Invisible Sun" commences their much more serious period. "I think it's your job to refine yourself out of existence," Sting told Mark Ellen in this fortnight's issue of ver Hits. Where the trio would normally prance about merrily in front of an airplane or lumber about awkwardly in the snow, in this instance they are barely visable. Black and white images of Belfast at its bleakest with just silhouettes, barely recognizable close-ups and snippets of their instruments being the only trace of The Police themselves. "[The video] is a rather crude way of saying 'forget about us, forget about three blonds, and just try and listen to the images that the song's about".

I as previously wrote, there is some debate as to which conflict inspired "Invisible Sun". The video obviously suggests Ulster which was something that British audiences could identify with. (The single didn't receive much attention outside of the British Isles; in most countries it was passed over in favour of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", which even Sting conceded was the more "obvious" hit) Drummer Stewart Copeland had been raised in Beirut and he considered it to be about the Lebanese capital. For my part, I live in the southwest corner of Korea and the first thing I think of is the nearby city of Gwangju and what its citizens went through in the spring of 1980. 

When the Korean military entered the city it was ostensibly to quash demonstrations by university students. Had hundreds of twentysomethings been the victims this would have been outrageous enough but there were children as young as five and people in the eighties who were among the dead. Government propaganda labelled protesters as North Korean sympathizers so is it any wonder troops felt that those they were going after were, in Sting's words, "not 'people' anymore, so we can kill them". This invisible sun should have brought hope to the citizens of Gwangju while renewing the humanity of those who entered the city and mowed people down with bullets. This is far too much to ask of a song but it is the fleeting sense of hope that is what matters.

The current day issue that "Invisible Sun" addresses is the Russian invasion of Ukraine but there is also the genocide of the Uyghurs in China and Iranian women protesting their country's repressive regime. Even the issue of trans rights applies as conservatives try to paint them as groomers. When music buffs talk about songs and albums being "timeless" I'm not sure "Invisible Sun" being relevant to stories in the news forty years on is what they have in mind. But this is probably the only truly accurate way that a record is able to age well. It is timeless because the message is needed regardless of time.

"Dammit, Sting, sing about something that matters for once!" This was something I wrote the last time I blogged about this song. He put his melodic talents to good use on a hit-and-miss selection of earlier Police singles ("Message in a Bottle" is great,"Don't Stand So Close to Me" is all right and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" is balls) but his lyrical skills were mostly wasted. "Invisible Sun" ended up being a breakthrough for him — and something he took with him into his hugely successful solo career. While other groups lose something by going serious, it was when they began touching upon issues that The Police began to come into their own. Women may have always swooned over Sting's brooding good looks but he didn't really become the Sting of rainforest conservation, Tantra and "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" until he stopped writing with his mind on the "man in the factory floor" and began the search for "something else".

In truth, however, Sting never really bettered "Invisible Sun". The song is simply too good that even someone of his abilities couldn't quite deliver a similar triumph. It has never seemed especially 'psychedelic' to these ears but maybe that's because it's so phenomenal that it avoids comparisons of all kinds. I used to think that I never knew that The Police had it in them but now I'm just grateful that they got it out for us to be touched by it as we live in a world in which its lyrics never fail to ring true.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Toyah: "Thunder in the Mountains"

Few have been redeemed in recent years as much as Toyah Willcox. It would be nice to say that her music has been given a long overdue reappraisal but that is not the case. It was those charming home movies that she and hubby Robert Fripp posted on Twitter during the last two years of Covid that did it. And good for them. Her music isn't really to my taste but "Thunder in the Mountains" is about as strong a record as she ever cut, her voice only somewhat histrionic, the music propulsive as it guides her along. If any Toyah single deserved to be a big hit, "Thunder in the Mountains" was it. I'll never be much of a fan of either Toyah or The Police but their attempts this fortnight are as close as I'll ever get.

(Click here to read the original review)

The Police: "Invisible Sun"

1 October 1981

"These are the goods! After the most hypnotic intro of the week, the song develops the kind of creamy propulsion that might give psychedelia a good name".

— Ian Birch

I've never especially liked The Police but I've never really been able to adequately explain why — though, truthfully, I've never really taken the time to think much about it until this past week. I've often thought of them along much the same lines as I do The Who, Eagles and Pulp, bands who may all have very talented singers, musicians and songwriters and who all possess a unique style and image that I might admire but who I just can't bring myself to like. Groups, in other words, who are less than the sum of their parts.

There's more to it than that though. First, there's the name. While Culture Club gave off a vibe of cool open-mindedness about race and sexuality and Wham! was silly but exciting and Duran Duran seemed naff (and still does) but vaguely hinted at the pretension of being named after a book or a film (I can't be bothered to look it up right now but it was probably from something like To Kill a Mockingbird or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, something I should've read or seen by now but is probably too late to bother with at this point), The Police smacked of authoritarianism and rigidity. What kind of young person back in 1981 looking around for music to get into was looking at a group calling themselves The Police and thinking "maybe they'll speak to me." No wonder they — along with Dire Straits, who happened to also be band with a boring name — was the eighties group of choice for baby boomers.

But who cares about their name if their songs hold up, right? Well, The Police don't do so well on that front either. It's not so much the cod reggae of their early work nor the bland MOR of the Synchronicity album that leaves them wanting, more that their songwriter and leader had a lot to say but seemed to fritter it away on songs dealing with cheap hookers and sex with teenage girls and stalking. A more personal, direct songwriter might have made something of value of these topics but when not you're best suited to connecting with the masses. Dammit, Sting, sing about something that matters for once!

"Invisible Sun" comes right in their — in the words of future Smash Hits scribe and pop star Neil Tennant — imperial phase and it was a brave move to put out something of actual consequence as a single. Putting his patented vocalist paranoia to good use, Sting weaves an unsettling tale of getting caught up in a system in which everyone is expendable and no one really matters ("I don't ever want to play the part, of a statistic on a government chart", "They would kill me for a cigarette, but I don't even wanna die just yet"). He drew inspiration from the situation in Ulster during The Troubles; drummer Stuart Copeland saw it being about Beirut. Indeed, it could just as easily be about Warsaw, Johannesburg, Gwangju, Kabul or any other parts of the world that had been living through hell at the time. Rising to their charismatic frontman's challenge, Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers deliver a simple, restrained performance, keeping the atmosphere as bleak as possible. The grainy, black-and-white video features shots of people meandering through desolate, bombed-out streets; they're probably stoic British souls trying their best to get through the Luftwaffe but they could be anyone at any time. We only see close-up shots of Sting's face in little more than silhouette form: don't look at me, he seems to be saying, take a look at what's going on around you.

A number of years later Sting began to get deeply involved in protecting the Brazilian Rainforests. His work drew both praise and criticism and he made the point that he wasn't exploiting the cause by making an album about it — as, indeed, plenty of other artists were happy to do in the post-Live Aid late-eighties. A shame since it may have inspired something as outstanding as this.

~~~~

Also of some cop

Squeeze: "Labelled with Love"

Between Nick Lowe's lifelong fetish for the genre, Elvis Costello's occasional dabblage — including his cover of "A Good Year for the Roses", also released this fortnight — and the present number from Difford, Tilbrook and co., it seems that an interest in country music was something that many within Britain's pub rock scene had in common. (Have the likes of Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris and The Dixie Chicks ever considered putting together Canvey Island Country: Nashville's Tribute to UK Pub Rock to return the favour? They really ought to) A good thing too. (But, first, a little context: twenty years ago the airwaves were polluted by Fastball and their catchy but irritating hit "The Way" and when I first gave Squeeze a listen a couple years later all I could think of was the similarly smug armchair psychology at play in their many character sketch songs. And we're back) "Labelled with Love" dials back considerably on the smarminess in order to sensitively tell the tale of a woman at the end of her life. Maybe country music was good for the Squeezed: it hooked them on to everything great about their music while stripping away all the nonsense.