On Friday I hope to buy tickets to see the Police in concert.
I am the man that I am because of the Police.
I learned to appreciate musicianship from them. They were the first band I really listened closely to, and they are brilliant musicians.
They taught me things like odd time signatures, and things having to do with keys and rhythms and syncopations and octaves and chords and all sorts of other stuff that I still don't fully understand. I am not a musician, but I learned all sorts of things about what is possible from listening to the Police.
I learned about Carl Jung through the Police. On the same album I was encouraged to question the concept of a just god, the inevitability of human progress, and my relationship to my mother. Synchronicity also gave me food for thought regarding obsession and murder.
The Police made me a leftie. How can you say that you're not responsible? they asked. One world is enough, they said.
Self pity in the face of loneliness: I felt it, and they gave voice.
Transcendent joy produced by love (or infatuation): is there anything better than Every Little Thing She Does is Magic?
Sinister, unhealthy love? Oh yeah. They covered that. Listen to I Burn for You.
The Police managed to sound tough without being macho. There is no misogyny in their music that I can discern (the song mentioned below involves Satan). There is respect, fear, and love of women in their music, though.
The Police had a song announcing suicide, and another preparing me for the dangers of becoming a Humbert. Masturbation: Be My Girl, Sally. Rape: A Kind of Loving.
I feel certain that the Police made me smarter, more sensitive, more aware, more thoughtful, more open, and more enthusiastic about life than I would otherwise have been. Other bands helped them, and I may still have turned out alright if they had never existed, but today, almost 25 years since their last album, I still turn to them when I'm happy and when I'm sad and when I'm angry about injustice. And when I want to hear music.
Their songs were dark and funny and clever and happy and bitter and angry and sophisticated. And they could rock. And they could be quiet. And they made me think about Everything.
I was a working class boy from Bessmer, Alabama. The Police made me a citizen of the world.
Yo.
