Every Breath You Take

It's a little known fact that wedding band and creepy stalker favorite "Every Breath You Take" is actually a cover of an old folk standard, as this recently discovered outtake from the "Another Side of Bob Dylan" sessions shows. The glossy adult contemporary arrangement popularized by Sting and the Police has unfortunately displaced the traditional arrangement in popular memory.

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posted by Et En Arcata Ego (16 comments total)

Heh.
posted by cortex at 10:51 AM on May 17, 2011

Awesome, both on its own terms and for being hilarious.
posted by COBRA! at 11:18 AM on May 17, 2011

The harmonica dabs are hilarious. Also the yodel.
posted by unSane at 12:22 PM on May 17, 2011

the harmonica is a great touch :)
posted by nile_red at 1:39 AM on May 18, 2011

Love this. Add a lot of tape fuzz and some distance from the mic and other people talking and bumbling on other instruments, and it would really sound genuine, a la Wagon Wheel.

Great yodel, for real.
posted by Corduroy at 9:54 AM on May 18, 2011

Also, welcome to Mefi Music! Looking forward to more posts.
posted by Corduroy at 9:55 AM on May 18, 2011

Ok, ok. How much for your silence about Roxanne, Spirits In The Material World and Synchronicity you cunt...?

sincerely

Stung
posted by MajorDundee at 11:41 AM on May 18, 2011

Thirding unSane and nile_red: the harmonica gets me every time. Well done!
posted by hatta at 1:13 PM on May 18, 2011

I would say we should have a Dylan impression roundup some time but we'd probably regret it.
posted by cortex at 1:14 PM on May 18, 2011

I would say we should have a Dylan impression roundup some time but we'd probably regret it

Don't think twice - it's all right.
posted by MajorDundee at 4:19 AM on May 19, 2011

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm glad the Dylan fakery came off as enjoyable rather than obnoxious.

How much for your silence about Roxanne, Spirits In The Material World and Synchronicity you cunt...?

I dig "Outlandos d'Amour" and "Regatta de Blanc". Sting seemed like a cool guy pre-lobotomy.

I would say we should have a Dylan impression roundup some time but we'd probably regret it.

I think a French guy once said that "Hell is other people's Dylan impressions."
posted by Et En Arcata Ego at 8:06 AM on May 19, 2011

hmm, did dylan ever yodel? - very funny
posted by pyramid termite at 9:52 PM on May 19, 2011

I was being a bit of a smartarse there Et En - those titles aren't randomly chosen. Roxanne is a character (spelt a little differently) in Cyrano de Bergerac - a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand; Spirits In The Material World owes much to the writings of Arthur Koestler and Synchronicty follows a conceptual trail back to Carl Jung. So, basically, Sting was up to his usual rather pretentious pseudo-highbrow nonsense with all of these. I actually really liked the Police and a lot of Sting's solo work - but only the music. I always thought the lyrics sucked and were simply hastily drafted vehicles for the vocal melodies. The worst boob he ever made lyrically in my view - one that stuck in my mind for all the wrong reasons - is the utterly awful line from "Don't Stand So Close To Me" where he refers with breathtaking clunkiness to "that book by Nabokov".
posted by MajorDundee at 1:08 AM on May 20, 2011

hmm, did dylan ever yodel? - very funny

"All I really want to doooooooo...."
posted by Et En Arcata Ego at 9:30 AM on May 20, 2011

Awesome!
posted by snsranch at 11:56 AM on May 20, 2011

Brilliant!
posted by spherical_perceptions at 9:53 PM on June 9, 2011