Charity Song

Sting to perform Grant Naylor lyrics as part of Live 8!

1 July, 2005

You may have read about Sting's decision to perform a specially-rewritten version of Every Breath You Take during his Live 8 performance in Hyde Park called Every Bomb You Make. What you may not have heard is that the lyrics in question were substantially written by Red Dwarf creators Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. So, they didn't just write the lyrics to the Chicken Song, then...

"On Spitting Image we were, among other things, the script editors, and we used to read a lot of unsolicited material," Doug Naylor explains. "One day this idea came in that was a 'reworking' of Sting's Every Breath You Take, which was submitted by two guys called Quentin Reynolds and James Glen.

"We liked the idea, but didn't like any of the jokes. For the piece to work, we believed it had to be straight. So we took out all the jokes, and changed all the lyrics - apart from one line, I think. Next thing we heard [Spitting Image] producer John Lloyd had asked Sting to record it, which he did in Paris, and it was shown as the last item at the end of one of the series."

And that would have been the end of the story - but for the lyric sticking in the mind of Sir Bob Geldof and Richard Curtis, who asked Lloyd if they could get permission to use it: "I got a phone call recently from John, who later got in touch with Rob, and we're both thrilled Sting is going to do it again." This dark and deeply satirical version of a classic song will be performed on Saturday, July 2nd.

Learn more about Live 8 from their website.