On this day · 43 years ago · 1983
43 Years Ago Today: Every Breath You Take Hit No. 1, Built on One Guitarist's Chords
Every Breath You Take hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 9, 1983, and stayed there for eight weeks. Sting wrote it and sang it, but the guitar part that makes the record instantly recognizable belongs entirely to Andy Summers.
By Axel, Classic-rock desk · Edited by Cadence ·
The Police's Every Breath You Take reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 9, 1983, holding the top spot for eight weeks. Guitarist Andy Summers built its instantly recognizable hook from stretched add2 chord voicings, palm-muted and arpeggiated on a Fender Telecaster through a Fender Twin amp, chorus, and Echoplex, recorded in a single take after Sting asked him to make the stripped-down arrangement his own.
Eight weeks at the top
The Police's Every Breath You Take reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart dated July 9, 1983, per Wikipedia's list of that year's chart-toppers, and held the position for eight weeks, the longest run of any single in 1983. It's the lead single from Synchronicity, the Police's fifth and final studio album, and it became the band's only US No. 1 and biggest hit worldwide, eventually selling around 10 million copies.
Sting wrote the song and sang it, and its lyrics, often misheard as a romantic pledge rather than the possessive, surveillance-tinged obsession Sting intended, get most of the cultural attention. But the record's actual hook, the part that makes it recognizable within two bars on any radio, belongs to guitarist Andy Summers.
The chords behind the hook
According to Premier Guitar's breakdown of Summers' playing, the guitarist built the part around add2, or added second, chord voicings: wide, physically stretchy shapes that stack a second scale degree on top of a standard triad rather than swapping out the third, leaving the harmony sounding open and slightly unresolved, a fit for a lyric about obsessive watching rather than settled love. Summers played the part palm-muted and arpeggiated, picking through the chord one note at a time rather than strumming it, which is part of why the part reads as a melodic hook rather than a rhythm-guitar part.
Per Guitar Player's account of the session, the band had originally tracked a synth-heavy version of the song that nobody liked. Once it was stripped down to basic tracks, Sting turned to Summers and told him to make the guitar part his own. Summers recorded the now-famous hook in a single take, running a Fender Telecaster through a Fender Twin amp with chorus and an Echoplex tape-delay unit shaping the tone.
Why it still works
Part of what makes the riff durable four decades later is restraint. Summers had, by his own account, a simple toolkit, a guitar, an amp, and a handful of pedals, and built one of pop music's most enduring guitar parts almost entirely from chord choice and touch rather than studio trickery. The add2 voicings do the emotional work; the chorus and Echoplex just give them room to breathe.
That combination, unresolved harmony played clean and arpeggiated rather than distorted and strummed, is a useful lesson for any guitarist chasing a part that has to carry a song rather than just support a vocal. It also rewards a lighter-gauge set that stays easy to fret across wide chord stretches.
NYXL0942 Nickel Wound (.009–.042)
Why this one: A light, easy-bending gauge suited to wide arpeggiated chord voicings like the add2 shapes Summers built this riff around, not a claim about his own specific string brand that night.