“Love is the Seventh Wave” by Sting

"Love Is the Seventh Wave" rides in on Sting's 1985 solo debut, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, and A&M sent it out as a single, second from the record in Britain and third in America. Sting wrote it alone, produced it with Pete Smith and stacked the band with heavy hitters: Branford Marsalis on sax, Kenny Kirkland on keyboards, Darryl Jones on bass, Omar Hakim on drums, and Dolette McDonald and Janice Pendarvis singing backup.

Billboard heard reggae folded into jazz chops, and Cash Box singled out Marsalis's soprano coloring the song's lilting sway. The payoff comes at the end, when Sting pokes fun at his biggest Police hit, "Every Breath You Take", with a jokey twist on its title line. The video casts him as the primary school teacher he was before music, singing among his pupils' artwork.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.