Credit: Far Out / Apple Music
Thu 30 April 2026 7:27, UK
The musical force behind The Police was too much to be contained in just one band.
While the group may have had a lot to work with as a trio, Sting’s masterful songwriting combined with the musical ingenuity of Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers made it inevitable for each to pursue their musical ventures outside the band. Although the group always had creative tension throughout their tenure, this one song was too much for Sting to give the time of day.
For the first few years of the band’s existence, Sting was responsible for almost every classic tune the band had to offer. Throughout Outlandos D’Amour, the bassist had already proven himself to be one of the finest pop musicians in the group, making songs that could work as rock tracks and get mainstream play all over the radio like ‘Roxanne’.
Once the group needed material for their second album, though, Sting’s scrambling to get material invited the rest of the band to work up their own songs. While Summers had already contributed the song ‘Be My Girl’ to the band’s debut, Copeland would bring songs to the table, even singing lead on the song ‘On Any Other Day’ from Reggatta De Blanc.
That shift subtly altered the internal dynamic of The Police. What had largely been a vehicle for Sting’s songwriting began to open up into a more collaborative space, where each member could bring their own sensibilities into the mix. While this broadened the band’s creative palette, it also introduced new tensions about direction and identity.
Credit: A&M Records
It was a classic case of artistic growth coming hand in hand with conflict. As Copeland and Summers pushed for more experimental or unconventional ideas, Sting remained focused on structure and melody, creating a push-and-pull that defined much of their later work. That friction, while occasionally fractious, was also a key ingredient in what made The Police such a distinctive and unpredictable band.
Proving their overnight success wasn’t a fluke, Zenyatta Mondatta was when the band started experimenting beyond their traditional power-trio roots. Although songs like ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’ would become massive hits for the group, there was a heavy emphasis on extra textures, like the glossy synths that coat the song’s midsection.
When putting together tracks for the deep cuts, Summers came up with a few riffs that he thought would work well as an instrumental track. While Copeland responded positively to the music that would eventually become ‘Behind My Camel’, Sting wanted nothing to do with the song.
Speaking to Louder, Summers talked about Sting refusing to play on the original version of the song, recalling, “We didn’t have enough songs to fill the album, and I had this ‘Behind My Camel’ thing. I said: ‘How about doing this, then?’ And Sting said: ‘I’m not playing on that!’ I actually believe he did bury the tape in the garden. Stewart was actually up for working on it, so I just played the bass”.
Despite Sting’s massive distaste for the song, Summers won his fair share of accolades for it, earning a Grammy for ‘Best Rock Instrumental Performance’. Even though the critical acclaim didn’t hurt at the time, Sting was more interested in writing pop tunes, according to Summers, later claiming, “I was always much more interested in weirder stuff, and the commercial hit songs always seemed to come out of Sting anyway”.
While the constant tension may not have made for the most pleasant album productions, it did result in musical ecstasy when paired together in the right way. With his strange musical taste, Summers would take songs like ‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’ and ‘Message in a Bottle’ to new heights with his innovative guitar effects. Even though The Police would become one of the greatest pop sensations of the early 1980s, Summers’s attention to detail on songs like ‘Behind My Camel’ ensured that they would never get boring.
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