The Police were one of the most successful bands of their time, bursting onto the scene with a refreshing blend of reggae and new wave. However, after the success of early hits such as 1978’s ‘Roxanne’ it didn’t take long for the cracks to appear, and in 1984, they went their separate ways.
Although the individual members have their sides of the story to tell, they all agree on the same thing; songwriting was a point of major contention.
Although there were several creative flashpoints, it was during the making of 1980’s third album, Zenyatta Mondatta, that frontman Sting made it resoundingly clear that he hated a number by guitarist Andy Summers.
The song in question is ‘Behind My Camel’, an instrumental featuring a creepy Summers melody that went on to win the 1982 Grammy for ‘Best Rock Instrumental Performance’. Despite the fanfare it would receive upon release though, Sting hated it so much that he refused to play on it, leaving Summers to lay down the ominous dub-adjacent bassline.
Over the years since the band called it a day, Sting – a man who has long been ridiculed for being one of the most pretentious in popular music – has clarified on several occasions that one of the main reasons for him deciding to go solo was that he felt that he was simply a better songwriter than both Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland.
Therefore it’s no real surprise that he hated ‘Behind My Camel’, as it wasn’t one of his.
In fact, Sting hated ‘Behind My Camel’ so intensely, that when he sat down with Revolver in 2000, he conceded: “I hated that song so much that, one day when I was in the studio, I found the tape lying on the table. So I took it around the back of the studio and actually buried it in the garden.”
Elsewhere, when speaking to Classic Rock in 2021, Summers delivered his side of the story. Although the typically measured maestro dubbed the drama surrounding the song as “typical band stuff”, he explained how it ended up on the record, and that it was out of necessity more than anything else.
“I was always much more interested in weirder stuff,” the guitarist said. “And the commercial hit songs always seemed to come out of Sting anyway.”
He continued, “We didn’t have enough songs to fill the album, and I had this ‘Behind My Camel thing’. I said: ‘How about doing this, then?’ And Sting said: ‘I’m not playing on that!’ I actually believe he did bury the tape in the garden.”
In true form, Sting has never reneged on his position regarding ‘Behind My Camel’, and dubs Zenyatta Mondatta “our most flawed record”. As for Summers though, he’s confident he had the last laugh, as the album went to number one in the UK, and as we know, the song even took home a Grammy.
Editors’ Picks
- 1980s Music
- Andy Summers
- Band Feuds
- Behind My Camel
- Grammy Awards
- Rock History
- Stewart Copeland
- Sting
- The Police
- Zenyatta Mondatta
