10 Rock Songs That Were Written By Accident

After a slowburn in the ‘70s, the Police had turned themselves into the biggest band in the world once the ‘80s kicked into high gear. Starting off with the sounds of Roxanne, every single song felt like a new creative adventure, merging rock and roll with everything from reggae to punk to blues. The synths were coming in on Synchronicity, if not for one song that didn’t even make the track listing.

Being released as a B-side to Every Breath You Take, Murder By Numbers is one of the most singularly weird songs in the Police’s catalog, beginning life as just a little chordal riff that Andy Summers had lying around that Sting thought would make for a good basis for a song. In this case though, the real accident behind the song is the way it was recorded, with very few overdubs and the whole thing sounding like a song that they just recorded on the studio floor as they were finishing up the record. Aside from the way they recorded it, you can hear the subtle nuances that make it seem like they just learned the tune, from Stewart Copeland’s kick going out of time with the rest of the band to Sting actually being out of tune on his fretless bass towards the end of the song.

That actually adds to the song’s vibe half the time though, from the strange eccentricities of the lyrics to the chords that feel like they’re ripped straight out of some contemporary jazz pop record. For all the reasons why the Police decided to call it off after this, it wasn’t because they were lacking in ideas. The ideas had simply gotten too big for all three of them to handle all at once.