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Rating: Well, I boldly review perhaps the weakest point in the Police's production. Perhaps. Because in this album, you can find very interesting cues and notable gems.
After the great worldwide success of Reggatta, the Police found themselves playing for a world tour of considerable size (Police Around The World, if someone helps me find this rare video, I thank them...). Success, covers, lights: the band perhaps begins to "unravel", Sting finds himself catapulted into the star system, and his creative streak suffers from it. And yet... despite the inevitable dilution heard in the tracks of this album, it's worth pointing out true "classics" of undisputed quality.
"Driven To Tears" is a little gem in dub, with a bitter lyric and a Summers solo that testifies to recent re-frequentations with his friend Fripp. Copeland is always a guarantee, a true "lord" of the cymbals. "When The World..." follows closely: a disorienting funky, with an insistent rhythmic march, and the guitar... we're always there, Summers manages with just three, super-harmonized chords to create a fabulous harmonic base. "Voices..." seems to be a faded copy of "Reggatta De Blanc", an anthem which, when listened to carefully, reveals a pretty decent tribal march.
Two reggae-ska episodes, cute but rather weak ("Canary In A Coalmine" and "Man In A Suitcase"), the sadly famous "De du du du...", definitely represent the weakest point of the album: little pop tunes thrown in without much thought, and without notable arrangements.
The album greatly improves with "Shadows In The Rain": a fantastic dub track, with a reverberated sound that envelops everything, doing some justice to the inventive capabilities of the trio. You even hear a stick strike from Copeland, perhaps a mistake (deliberately left?).
All in all, an album that if it had been conceived and produced more calmly, or perhaps without pressures from the record label, could have yielded better results. Let's say an unfinished work...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Don't Stand So Close to Me (04:02)
Young teacher the subject
Of schoolgirl fantasy
She wants him so badly
Knows what she wants to be
Inside her there's longing
This girl's an open page
Book marking - she's so close now
This girl is half his age
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Her friends are so jealous
You know how bad girls get
Sometimes it's not so easy
To be the teacher's pet
Temptation, frustration
So bad it makes him cry
Wet bus stop, she's waiting
His car is warm and dry
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Loose talk in the classroom
To hurt they try and try
Strong words in the staff room
The accusations fly
It's no use, he sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabokov
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
Don't stand, don't stand so
Don't stand so close to me
02 Driven to Tears (03:22)
How can you say that you're not responsible?
What does it have to do with me?
What is my reaction, what should it be?
Confronted by this latest atrocity
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
Hide my face in my hands, shame wells in my throat
My comfortable existence is reduced to a shallow meaningless party
Seems that when some innocent die
All we can offer them is a page in a some magazine
Too many cameras and not enough food
'Cause this is what we've seen
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
Protest is futile, nothing seems to get through
What's to become of our world, who knows what to do
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
Driven to tears
04 Canary in a Coalmine (02:27)
First to fall over when the atmosphere is less than perfect
Your sensibilities are shaken by the slightest defect
You live you life like a canary in a coalmine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
You say you want to spend the winter in Firenza
You're so afraid to catch a dose of influenza
You live your life like a canary in a coalmine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
Canary in a coalmine
Now if I tell you that you suffer from delusions
You pay your analyst to reach the same conclusions
You live your life like a canary in a coalmine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
Canary in a coalmine
First to fall over when the atmosphere is less than perfect
Your sensibilities are shaken by the slightest defect
You live your life like a canary in a coalmine
You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line
Canary in a coalmine
05 Voices Inside My Head (03:53)
Voices inside my head
Echoes of things that you said
[Repeat ad nauseum]
06 Bombs Away (03:06)
The general scratches his belly and thinks
His pay is good but his officers stink
Guerilla girl, hard and sweet
A military man would love to meet
The President looks in the mirror and speaks
His shirts are clean but his country reeks
Unpaid bills
In Afghanistan hills
Bombs away
But we're O.K.
Bombs away
In old Bombay
The general only wants to teach France to dance
His army life doesn't give him any romance
Guerilla girl, hard and sweet
A military man would love to meet
The general scratches his belly and thinks
His pay is good but his company stinks
Guerilla girl, hard and sweet
A military man would love to meet
Bombs away
But we're O.K.
Bombs away
In old Bombay
07 De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da (04:10)
Don't think me unkind
Words are hard to find
They're only check's I've left unsigned
From the banks of chaos in my mind
And when their eloquence escapes me
Their logic ties me up and rapes me
De do do do de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
De do do do de da da da
Their innocence will pull me through
De do do do de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
De do do do de da da da
They're meaningless and all that's true
Poets, priests and politicians
Have words to thank for their positions
Words that scream for your submission
And no-one's jamming their transmission
'Cos when their eloquence escapes you
Their logic ties you up and rapes you
De do do do de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
De do do do de da da da
Their innocence will pull me through
De do do do de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
De do do do de da da da
They're meaningless and all that's true
10 Shadows in the Rain (05:03)
(Sting)
Woke up in my clothes again this morning
Don't know exactly where I am
And I should heed my doctor's warning
He does the best with me he can
He claims I suffer from delusions
Yet I'm so confident I'm sane
It can't be no optical illusion
So how can you explain
Shadows in the rain
And if you see us on the corner
And we're dancing in the rain
I join my friends there when I see them
Outside my window pane
Shadows in the rain
Shadows in the rain
Shadows in the rain
Shadows in the rain
Woke up in my clothes again this morning
Don't know exactly where I am
I should heed my doctor's warning
He does the best with me he can
Shadows in the rain
Shadows in the rain
Shadows in the rain
Shadows in the rain
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Other reviews
By claudio carpentieri
Try listening at full volume to those eight initial snare drum beats in "Driven To Tears," and you’ll understand why even today, when people talk about The Police’s sound, it is done by appreciating that magical sense of novelty.
"Zenyatta Mondatta" can be considered a sunny sonic document that aptly represents the transition from the ’70s to the ’80s of one of the most extraordinary ensembles the multicolored universe of rock music has ever had.
By wardrobeOFdeath
The tracks have a concise and well-accentuated rhythm (clearly of reggae origin), yet they are not for dancing, they are for listening.
The last song is 'The Other Way Of Stopping', a thrilling, somewhat dark progressive piece... That said, it concludes one of the best pop albums I have ever heard.
