[13] In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as The Nation's Favourite 1980s number one in a UK-wide poll for ITV.

Sting recalled: 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.

Led Zeppelin's song, "D'yer Mak'er" (1973), also contains the words "every breath I take; every move I make".

The demo of the song was recorded in an eight-track suite in North London's Utopia studios and featured Sting singing over a Hammond organ.

[2] A few months later, he presented the song to the other band members when they reconvened at George Martin's AIR Studios in Montserrat to work on the Synchronicity album.

[19][20] While recording, guitarist Andy Summers came up with a guitar part inspired by Béla Bartók that would later become a trademark lick, and played it straight through in one take.

He was asked to put guitar onto a simple backing track of bass, drums, and a single vocal, with Sting offering no directive beyond "make it your own".

I'd been making an album with Robert Fripp, and I was kind of experimenting with playing Bartok violin duets and had worked up a new riff.

[22]The recording process was fraught with difficulties as personal tensions between the band members, particularly Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland, came to the fore.

[2] Producer Hugh Padgham claimed that by the time of the recording sessions, Sting and Copeland "hated each other", with verbal and physical fights in the studio common.

[2] The tensions almost led to the recording sessions being cancelled until a meeting involving the band and the group's manager, Miles Copeland (Stewart's brother), resulted in an agreement to continue.

[2] To give the song more liveliness, Padgham asked Copeland to record his drum part in the studio's dining room in order to achieve some "special sound effects".

[2] A piano accompaniment consisting of individual notes was added to complete the song's bridge.

"[24] The song had a music video (directed by duo Godley & Creme) loosely based on Gjon Mili's 1944 short film Jammin' the Blues.

Shot in black-and-white with a navy blue tint, the video depicts the band, accompanied by a pianist and string section, performing the song in a darkened ballroom as a man washes the floor-to-ceiling window behind them.

[25] Released in the early days of MTV, "Every Breath You Take" was one of the earliest videos to enter heavy rotation, which significantly contributed to the song's popularity.

According to A&M Vice President of Marketing and Creative Services Jeff Ayeroff, "[The video for] 'Every Breath You Take' probably cost $75,000 to $100,000, and we sold over 5 million albums.

"[26] On 5 October 2022, Billboard officially released a statement confirming that the music video for "Every Breath You Take" surpassed one billion views on YouTube.

[27] "Every Breath You Take" was released as a single in 1983, with B-side "Murder by Numbers" – a composition by Summers and Sting that had been omitted from the vinyl release of Synchronicity in favour of Copeland's "Miss Gradenko" due to LP length limitations,[28] only appearing as the final track on the CD and cassette.

2 in Spain, Sweden, Norway and Australia, while reaching the Top 10 in most other Western, Northern and Southern European countries.

Sting received the 1983 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

[32] In 2001, The Sopranos episode "Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood" features a mashup combining "Every Breath You Take" with "Peter Gunn".

[13] In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's favourite 1980s number one in a UK-wide poll for ITV.

[14] The song is sampled in Puff Daddy's 1997 hit "I'll Be Missing You," which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks and won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group; Sting ultimately participated in a performance of "I'll Be Missing You" at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.

Even though we made gazillions off of it, and it's the biggest hit we ever had, when I listen to this recording, I think "God, what a bunch of assholes we were!