Walk into any store or flip on a radio, and you'll probably hear the Police's "Every Breath You Take" sooner or later. Thanks to that ubiquity, the swooning, menacing megahit's songwriter-Sting-is a very wealthy man. Now, his former bandmates, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, are suing Sting over who deserves to profit from "Breath" and other Police songs.. No matter how that dispute turns out, it's a reminder of Sting's uncanny songwriting skill and his charmed life of hitmaking.
In the suit, filed in London High Court, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland claim they never got songwriting credit on their band's 1983 single, one of the biggest hits of the '80s and famously sampled on Diddy and Faith Evans' "I'll Be Missing You." They allege in the suit that they have never been paid for their writing contributions.