Q 01/05

Often taken for a tender ballad, the Police's "Every Breath You Take" is sung from whose point of view?

A) A grieving widower

B) A possessive lover

C) A secret admirer

D) A guardian angel

Answer · why

B) A possessive lover

A possessive lover keeping watch is the narrator, and Sting has called the song sinister and ugly. He wrote it in half an hour after waking in the nig...

Q 02/05

The Police frontman got the nickname Sting from which black-and-yellow striped garment he often wore?

A) A sweater

B) A scarf

C) A necktie

D) A waistcoat

Answer · why

A) A sweater

A sweater (a jumper, in British English) in black and yellow hoops made him look like a wasp, a jazz bandleader remarked. Sting says even his mother a...

Q 03/05

Sting named the Police song "Roxanne" after a character in which play, seen on a Paris hotel poster?

A) Waiting for Godot

B) The Cherry Orchard

C) Cyrano de Bergerac

D) A Streetcar Named Desire

Answer · why

C) Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac was advertised on an old poster in the foyer of the seedy hotel where the Police stayed in October 1977. Sting took the name of the...

Q 04/05

Before the Police, Sting held which job, the one at the centre of his hit "Don't Stand So Close to Me"?

A) Librarian

B) Probation officer

C) Journalist

D) Schoolteacher

Answer · why

D) Schoolteacher

Schoolteacher was Sting's trade for two years in Cramlington, near Newcastle, before music paid the bills. He has denied that the song's story is auto...

Q 05/05

Which 1997 tribute to the Notorious B.I.G. was built on a sample of the Police's "Every Breath You Take"?

A) It's All About the Benjamins

B) I'll Be Missing You

C) Been Around the World

D) Can't Nobody Hold Me Down

Answer · why

B) I'll Be Missing You

I'll Be Missing You came out before Puff Daddy had cleared the sample, a mistake that handed Sting the publishing royalties. The two later performed i...