WCSX Classic Cuts : Next to You
WCSX Classic Cuts
The Police: “Next to You”
The Hook: An energetic set opener from their punk days.
Album: Outlandos d’Amour
Year: 1978
Writer: Sting
Stats: Never released as a single.
Background: “Next to You” is both the first song on the first Police album, Outlandos d’Amour, and the final song Sting and company played live on their 2007-2008 reunion tour. Drummer Stewart Copeland struggles to remember other details about it.
Police drummer Stewart Copeland shares what he can remember at the time about “Next to You.” OC:…punk days. :23
“It was very hard track to play, very energetic and we used to open the set with it. We used to go [sings] blat-um blat-um blat-um blam blam duh duh duh duh da dum, and we’d always speed up to double the speed about four bars into the track. Let’s see, is that on the first album? Yeah, I guess it is. Who wrote that? Did I write that? I think it might have been my riff and Sting’s vocal. I can’t remember. But it was one of those early Police rama-lama tunes dating back to our punk days.”
