“Roxanne” by The Police

"Roxanne" was the Police's second single and their first for A&M Records, put out in 1978 ahead of their debut album, Outlandos d'Amour, and it's a torch song dressed up in a tight, jittery groove. Sting wrote it from the viewpoint of a man who has fallen for a prostitute, and he sings it high and aching, part plea, part yelp, over his own bass.

Stewart Copeland's drums skitter and hold back, Andy Summers' guitar drops in chords like punctuation, and the whole thing breathes with a patience most of the era's loud young bands never bothered with. The band produced it themselves, with Chris Gray and Nigel Gray engineering.

A reissue in April 1979 took it to number 12 on the UK singles chart. Rolling Stone later placed it among the greatest songs of all time, it was the first song the reunited Police played at the 2007 Grammy Awards to open their 30th anniversary tour, and in 2008 it entered the Grammy Hall of Fame.

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