Murder By Numbers

The first copy of the LP I bought did not have this track. A cassette version and a CD version did. It was also the B-side of the omnipresent "Every Breath You Take". Because that song was on virtually every jukebox in the universe during the Eighties, I used to get a kick out of playing "Murder by Numbers", which tagged along with EBYT on the jukeboxes in rednecky places, making everyone wonder, "What the hell is this?"

This song describes three more or less incompatible forms of killing. Serial killers tend to try to maintain normal lives, with the killing unknown to their (seemingly safe) families. Of course, the "sport of the elected", killing via war, is quite different. This song is, obviously, a dark satire in the spirit of "A Modest Proposal". It also has a political message if you work backwards: It suggests (implausibly) that a serial killer might go on to lead a country, but asks us to make the reverse connection: Leaders of nations are often de facto mass murderers.

I wonder if a few years later, Sting would have felt that this song was within the bounds of reasonable taste. It was around this time that various murders and suicides were alleged to have been caused by the influence of various rock music (much harder than the Police!) on teens. A case like this concerning Judas Priest took place two years after this song was released.

This song is government hypocrisy, irony if you will. Sure it goes on about the art of murder and the different ways to kill people . The average listener is lulled into the fact that this is an anti song about sociopaths and the shock builds as one continues to listen to the lyrics. Then like sweeping the rug from under the listener, Sting gets into how government, non chalantly kills people and the average person just accepts it for collateral damage or whatever, I know not all people do.. I digress. Sting is clearly making a political statement here and suddenly that mass murderer or serial killer that may have killed 1 person, 10 people or even 30 people is a mere bag of chips compared to top level politicians that kill thousands, if not millions in some cases, if you go back to Mussolini or Stalin or Hitler.

Yes, it was actually. Last track

My favourite Police song. Sting brings out his vocal range and the drumming is very. very tight.

The album’s closing jazz-rock melody, “Murder by Numbers,” charted a course to success for the most aspiring of politicians, proposing an easy means whereby they might eliminate their competition. That cut-throat suggestion, however, only increased the wrath of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, to the point of insisting that the song had been written by Satan himself, and performed by the sons of Beelzebub.

[From Rock & Holy Rollers: The Spiritual Beliefs of Chart-Topping Rock Stars in Their Lives and Lyrics by Geoffrey D. Falk.]

The other eight songs (nine, if you count 'Murder By Numbers' that only appears on regular CD issues of Synchronicity) are pure Sting, and as is the usual custom, all of them rule. Some rule from the start, others on repeated listens. Contrary to initial rumours, Mr Sumner does not entirely slide into soft-rock territory; the two title tracks gotta rank among the best rockers the Police ever did, even if they're widely different from the earlier stuff - the punkish aesthetics has been swept away, replaced by a "clean-cut" New Wave punch and numerous artsy overtones, with atmospheric synthesizers and Andy's guitar assuming a totally otherworldly role. (Which reminds me - be sure to trace all the weird guitar effects that Andy uses throughout. It's Sting's album, for sure, but it also gotta rank as the peak of Summers' experimental tiddly-widdling with his six-string. No wonder the man easily found a common language with Robert Fripp).

… and that end track, 'Murder By Numbers', which, as Sting himself confessed on Frank Zappa's Broadway The Hard Way, was written by Satan, according to Jimmy Swaggart. Cool little jazzy tune that teaches you how to, well, murder by numbers. [George Starostin]

well ok. last track on cd, but only the 7inch single b-side.. ok great great guitar chords, swninging stuff lots of fun, ok lyrics like that wow its pretty risqué too.. bad bad Sting.

but other than that hasn't anybody ever heard about.. say dictatoship killings ??

I believe the title is a play on color by numbers.

The first stanza "Once that you've decided... a murder into art" describes how you must detach if you are ever going to kill. That is a decision you must make. You can't kill and still care about other humans.

The second stanza "There really isn't any need for bloodshed" describes the easiest way of killing by poison. This is a method mainly employed by women and people most closely related to the victim. Some would also consider it the most humane.

The third stanza (after the chorus) "Now if you have a taste for this experience" describes a fairly big jump up the career killer ladder. It is killing two or three people at a time. This would teeter on the edge of being a serial killer and begins to suggest drive-by shootings, home invasions, etc.

The next stanza "Now you can join the ranks of the illustrious" discusses how after a few killings you can consider yourself infamous. This may have been true at the time the song was written. Again, this is a rather disjointed jump in the meaning of the song. Murderers are usually stopped after just a few killings and don't usually have a chance to pull off too many twofers and threefers...

The final stanza "But you can reach the top of your profession" discusses the political aspect. It is true that you can simply push a button to kill the whole world and that may have been a statement about nuclear war as much as it might have been about being powerful enough to get others to kill on your behalf. This may be the most twisted form of murder since it implies the willingness of those under you to go along with the crime or a scary thin gap between our world leaders and the bomb.

The chorus itself is a brilliant repitition of an near-childlike chant. You can almost see someone chanting it over and over with a knife dripping with blood.

Great song and creepy to know that it was the B-Side of "Every Breath You Take."

This song was defined by Jimmy Swaggart as "a song written by satan, performed by the sons of satan..." This can be heard on the Frank Zappa album Broadway the Hard Way where the song is performed with Sting on vocals, in the intro he explains the fact. He concludes saying that "[he] wrote the fucking song"...awesome version that one too.

Methinks Sir Gordon is singing about a murderous sociopath