Hard to tell the difference.


This ambivalence doesn't show up only in The Hunter. We can also find it, for instance, in Police's Every Breath You Take, or more to the point, in the way listeners react to that song. To my ears there's something ominous in the way Sting sings "I'll be watching you", but apparently not everyone feels this. The Wikipedia entry for the song quotes Sting concerning the writing of the song. He acknowledges that it can be seen from two different perspectives:
I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.
In that same entry he notes that the more ominous aspects of the song are for him the dominant ones but that that's apparently not the case for most listeners:
Sting later said he was disconcerted by how many people think the song is more positive than it is. He insists it is about the obsession with a lost lover, and the jealousy and surveillance that follow. "One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'"... "I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite."
And I guess that this suggests that at least to a certain extent we feel honored that someone might be watching us, even if it's only by surveillance camera.



Go to: Benevolent tracking?, or
Go to: Ain't no need to hide, ain't no need to run.