Message in a Bottle
by The Police
- 152
- BPM
- C# minor
- Key
- 12A
- Camelot
- 59
- Danceability
- 4
- Acousticness
In 1979, the Police were recording their second album, Reggatta de Blanc, at Surrey Sound Studios, and "Message in a Bottle" became its lead single in September. Sting wrote it, and Andy Summers said Sting had been fiddling with the central riff on the band's first American tour, first for a different song. He rearranged it slightly and came up with this one. Summers built the final riff from several overdubbed guitar parts and added an arpeggiated figure before the third verse.
Stewart Copeland's drumming was overdubbed from about six different parts. The B-side was "Landlord", with lyrics by Sting and music by Copeland. The song first had lyrics by Copeland. Sting replaced them.
The story is of a castaway who sends a message in a bottle seeking love. After a year with no reply, he despairs. The next day he sees a hundred billion bottles on the shore and realizes there are more lonely people like him. It was the first of the Police's five UK number-one singles. It also topped the chart in Ireland and reached No. 5 in Australia, but only No. 74 in the US. The band debuted it on television on the BBC's Rock Goes to College at Hatfield Polytechnic, and donated the money earned to the college.
Message in a Bottle runs at 152 BPM, the tempo of hard techno, punk and fast rock. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.58 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 395 ms. It is in C# minor, Camelot 12A, which shares its notes with E major and mixes cleanly with F# minor and Ab minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.