Song · The Police
“Secret Journey” by The Police
From the album Ghost in the Machine (1981)
“Secret Journey” by The Police appears on 9 radio countdowns from 3 stations between 1997 and 2005. It was first released in 1981 on the album Ghost in the Machine. Its best result is #566 on the CD101 Top 2005 Songs of All-Time (December 2004). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #1,725 alternative song of all time.
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"Secret Journey" comes from Ghost in the Machine, the Police's fourth album, in 1981, and it's Sting going looking for his soul. He has said the lyric grew out of George Gurdjieff's book Meetings with Remarkable Men and its notion that you have to travel, whether across the map or inside your own head, to get outside yourself; the song follows a seeker on a mystical trek toward holiness.
The band, producing with Hugh Padgham, who also engineered, dress it in suitably misty clothes: a hushed, shimmering opening that gives way to a taut, pulsing new wave groove. Sting later said he was searching for spiritual guidance at the time, and the track sounds like it. It never got a single release in Europe, but it did come out as one in the US and Canada.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Classic Rock
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | 717 | 102.3 WBAB | WBAB Top 1,023 Rock and Roll Songs of All Time (1997) | 1023 |
| 1999 | 566 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2000 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) | 2000 |
| 2000 | 566 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2001 Songs of All-Time (December 2000) | 2001 |
| 2001 | 566 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (December 2001) | 2002 |
| 2002 | 566 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2003 Songs of All-Time (December 2002) | 2003 |
| 2003 | 566 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2004 Songs of All-Time (December 2003) | 2004 |
| 2003 | 1297 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003) | 2044 |
| 2004 | 566 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2005 Songs of All-Time (December 2004) | 2005 |
| 2005 | 566 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2006 Songs of All-Time (December 2005) | 1994 |
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