it’s a big enough umbrella, but it’s always me who ends up getting wet (13. 976)

Topping the UK charts on this day in 1981, the lead single from the fourth studio album, Ghost in the Machine (other tracks including “Spirits in the Material World,” “Secret Journey”and “Invisible Sun”), the song was composed by Sting originally in 1977, before the formation of the band and ostensibly about the tryst with his West London neighbour on current spouse Trudie Styler over his then new wife, actor Frances Tomelty, but his move to the capital writing of the lyrics coincided with the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II. and may have been informed by a unrequited affection for the Queen—inspired for bigger aspirations after the Queen Mother waved at him as a dockworker and eventually elevated to a Knight Commander during the monarch’s birthday honours in 2003 for his service to the music industry. Putting finishing touches on the chorus, Sting was searching for another word that rhymed with magic—besides tragic—and could only come up with pelagic, which did not make it to the finished demo, recording between Quebec and Monserrat.