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Synchronicity II

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"Synchronicity II"
Single by the Police
from the album Synchronicity
B-side"Once Upon a Daydream"
Released28 October 1983 (1983-10-28)[1]
Recorded
  • Late 1982
  • January 1983
Studio
Genre
Length5:04
LabelA&M (AM 153)
Songwriter(s)Sting
Producer(s)
The Police UK singles chronology
"Wrapped Around Your Finger"
(1983) 		"Synchronicity II"
(1983) 		"King of Pain"
(1984)
The Police US singles chronology
"King of Pain"
(1983) 		"Synchronicity II"
(1983) 		"Wrapped Around Your Finger"
(1984)
Alternative cover
Brazilian single picture sleeve
Brazilian single picture sleeve
Music video
"Synchronicity II" on YouTube

"Synchronicity II" is a song by the Police, and the third single from their album Synchronicity. Written by lead singer and bassist Sting, it was released as a single in the UK and the US by A&M Records, reached No. 17 in the UK Singles Chart[4] and No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1983.[5] It features the non-album track "Once Upon a Daydream" on the B-side. The song was described by People Weekly as "aggressive" and "steely."[6]

Background

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The song, which refers to Carl Jung's theory of synchronicity, nominally tells the story of a man whose home, work life, and environment are dispiriting and depressing. Lyrics refer to "Grandmother screaming at the wall", as well as "Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration / But we know all her suicides are fake". The man is routinely denigrated by his boss ("and every single meeting with his so-called superior / Is a humiliating kick in the crotch") and ignored when he crosses a picket line; all the while "he knows that something somewhere has to break". Meanwhile, something monstrous is emerging from a "dark Scottish lake/loch", a reference to the Loch Ness Monster—a parallel to the father's own inner anguish.

There's a domestic situation where there's a man who's on the edge of paranoia, and as his paranoia increases a monster takes shape in a Scottish lake, the monster being a symbol of the man's anxiety. That's a synchronistic situation.

— Sting, 'A Visual Documentary', 1984[7]

Interpretations of the lyrics vary widely.[8][9] Writing in Entertainment Weekly about a 1996 Sting tour, Chris Willman said:

"The late-inning number that really gets [the crowd] galvanized is the edgy old Police staple that has the most old-fashioned unresolved rock tension in it, 'Synchronicity II'—which, after all, is a song about a domestic crisis so anxiety-producing that it wakes up the Loch Ness Monster."[10]

Sting explained the theme of the song to Time magazine:

"Jung believed there was a large pattern to life, that it wasn't just chaos. Our song Synchronicity II is about two parallel events that aren't connected logically or causally, but symbolically."[11]

"Synchronicity II" also may have taken inspiration from the poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats.[12] The theme of "The Second Coming" is similar to that of "Synchronicity II"—a civilisation beginning to collapse, and the rise of something new, something perhaps savage, to take its place.

In "Synchronicity II" guitarist Andy Summers "forgoes the pretty clean sounds for post-apocalyptic squeals and crashing power chords", writes Matt Blackett in Guitar Player magazine.[13] Summers recalls how the feedback was created: "So I was in the studio with the Strat and two Marshalls full up, waiting for them to run the track. I put the headphones on and started messing around with the feedback, really giving it one... six minutes of screeching with my life passing before me on the guitar!"[14]

According to Summers, "Synchronicity II" was originally intended to be placed immediately after the song "Synchronicity I" on Synchronicity, with a brief instrumental piece serving as a segue.

"We had this section for 'Synchronicity' which we referred to as The Loch. I went in and detuned my guitar synth to C sharp and it produced a great wash of sound, lovely. And there was an acoustic on top, a few cymbals and an oboe, really serene. We were going to have it at the end of 'Synchronicity I' — it was supposed to be the Loch Ness Monster — and then it would go into 'Synchronicity II'. But we couldn't really get it to work. Miles (Copeland) didn't like it... it was too psychedelic for him."[15]

The 2024 Super Deluxe box set of Synchronicity includes this piece under the title "Loch".

The flip side to the single, "Once Upon A Daydream", was a composition cowritten by Andy Summers and Sting. As Sting remembers, "It's a set of chords Andy came up with and I wrote some lyrics to them by the swimming pool in Monserrat. It's very dark but that was the Ghost in the Machine period. Very intense".[16]

Reception

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Cash Box said the song "jumps with a contemporary rock drive" and praised Sting's vocal performance and Summers' and Copeland's "powerful" instrumental performances.[17]

Music video

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The music video for "Synchronicity II" was directed by Godley & Creme, filmed at a sound stage on the outskirts of London. In it the band are seen performing on top of giant piles of guitars, drums, junk, car parts, wires, with debris and papers flying about, punctuated by footage of Loch Ness for the first and third choruses. The band members stood apart from each other on separate towers made of scaffolding, wearing dystopian outfits. A misty and stormy appearance was created with air blowers and dry ice. The peculiar guitar Andy Summers is seen playing is a Gittler guitar. During the filming, Copeland's tower caught fire and the crew started to leave the building. Creme told the director of photography to keep the cameras rolling despite the danger.[18]

Track listing

[edit]
12" UK Single AMX 153
No.TitleLength
1."Synchronicity II"5:04
2."Once Upon a Daydream"3:28

Personnel

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Charts

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Chart (1983–1984) Peak
position
Canada Top Singles (RPM)[19] 21
Ireland (IRMA)[20] 12
UK Singles (OCC)[21] 17
US Cashbox[22] 15
US Billboard Hot 100[23] 16


References

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  1. ^ "Music Week" (PDF). p. 48.
  2. ^ Buskin, Richard (March 2004). "Classic Tracks: The Police's 'Every Breath You Take'". Sound on Sound.
  3. ^ All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music. Hal Leonard Corporation. 2001. p. 311. ISBN 9780879306274.
  4. ^ The Police in the UK Charts, The Official Charts.
  5. ^ "Synchronicity II" in the Billboard Charts, Billboard.com.
  6. ^ "Synchronicity." People Weekly v20.(25 July 1983): pp14(1).
  7. ^ "'Synchronicity II' / 'Once Upon a Daydream'". sting.com.
  8. ^ Interpretations of the content of "Synchronicity II" on www.songfacts.com
  9. ^ Interpretations of the content of "Synchronicity II" on www.songmeanings.net
  10. ^ "King of painlessness" (rock star Sting). Chris Willman. Entertainment Weekly n339 (August 9, 1996 n339): pp30(4).
  11. ^ "Official Police business" (music group Police). Jay Cocks. Time v122.(August 15, 1983): pp50(1).
  12. ^ Jones, Chris (2007). "The Police Synchronicity Review". BBC Music. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
  13. ^ "The 50 greatest tones of all time." (Critical Essay). Matt Blackett. Guitar Player 38.10 (Oct 2004): p44(17).
  14. ^ "Overalls". One Two Testing. December 1983.
  15. ^ "One Two Tightened". One Two Testing. December 1983.
  16. ^ Message in a Box: The Complete Police Recordings, booklet, A&M, 1993
  17. ^ "Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. 5 November 1983. p. 7. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
  18. ^ Tannenbaum, Rob; Marks, Craig (2011). I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. Penguin. p. 9. ISBN 9781101526415.
  19. ^ "Top RPM Singles: Issue 3026." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  20. ^ "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Synchronicity". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  21. ^ "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 24 June 2016.
  22. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2014). Cash Box Pop Hits 1952-1996. Sheridan Books, Inc. ISBN 978-0-89820-209-0.
  23. ^ "The Police Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
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