The Police -- Every Breath You Take/Righeira -- No Tengo Dinero

Rather interesting duo for this particular Reminiscings of Youth article. How did this all come about?

Well, actually, I had been thinking about focusing on just the Spanish-language "No Tengo Dinero" (I Don't Have Money), a song by Italo Disco duo Righeira that came out in 1983. When I first saw the music video for this on one of the many video shows that were showing on the local channels here in Toronto, I was absolutely mesmerized by this bizarre mix of graphics and old historical footage as Stefano Rota and Stefano Righi kept yelling out the title. At the time, I couldn't recognize the language but I'd assumed that it was Brazilian Portuguese. The weird symbolism that I got from the video made me think that this would have made for a wonderful psychoanalytical tool!

However, the thing is that I couldn't pinpoint the exact month that "No Tengo Dinero" was released (no tengo ni idea, I guess), so I decided to bring in the Top 3 Oricon singles in Japan for that entire year this time around. But for that, I figured that I had to track down what the No. 1 song on Billboard was for 1983. Therefore, I went for both songs.

At first, I'd thought that it would be Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", but that actually came in at No. 2. "Billie Jean" was eclipsed by The Police's "Every Breath You Take". I had my introduction to Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland during that trip to Japan in 1981. One of my classmates had a compilation audio tape of a whole bunch of singers including Split Enz and Queen. The Police was on the tape as well with "Roxanne".

Back to "Every Breath You Take", I got to know the music video far more than I did the audio version of the song. Indeed it was a striking video with the black & white footage of The Police in that darkened ballroom while this deceptively comforting song of Sting vowing to keep an eye on a lover like an omnipresent guardian. The video got heavy rotation on the music video shows and it probably populated the top of the charts for weeks on end.

However, a lot of time later, I found out through interviews that Sting was rather bemused about how "Every Breath You Take" was being received as this deeply romantic ballad when in fact, it was meant as a lyrical version of a twisted suspense movie. The so-called guardian was actually an obsessive ex who wouldn't take NO for an answer. Wowzers! I guess maybe it got left off the playlist during prom season then. It might also explain why Sting looks so intense in the video.

Anyways, what were the biggest hits in Japan for 1983? Well, two of them were enka tunes.

1. Eisaku Ohkawa -- Sazanka no Yado

2. Takashi Hosokawa -- Yagiri no Watashi

3. Warabe -- Medaka no Kyoudai