The Police were going to throw out Every Breath You Take until Andy Summers recorded its iconic riff – in one take

Andy Summers
(Image credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

It's hard to believe that The Police's 1983 hit Every Breath You Take was almost thrown out in the studio.

The track – by most accounts the bands biggest song, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks following its release, and garnering nearly 1.2 billion Spotify streams at the time of writing – features what's now one of the most iconic electric guitar parts of all time.

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Sam Roche

Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.