Line #40 Music/ZenyattaMondatta


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zenyatt_mondatta.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''You live your life like a canary in a coalmine\
3	You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line'']]
4	->''Young teacher, the subject\
5	Of schoolgirl fantasy\
6	She wants him so badly\
7	Knows what she wants to be\
8	\
9	Inside her there's longing\
10	This girl's an open page\
11	Book marking, she's so close now''\
12	'''''This girl is half his age!'''''
13	-->-- "Don't Stand So Close to Me"
14
15	''Zenyattà Mondatta'' is the third studio album recorded by English-American PostPunk[=/=]NewWaveMusic band Music/ThePolice. It was released through Creator/AAndMRecords on 3 October 1980.
16
17	Recorded in four weeks during the leadup to their second tour, the album marks the start of a shift away from the {{reggae}} fusion sound of ''Music/OutlandosDAmour'' and ''Music/ReggattaDeBlanc'' in favor of a more atmospheric, electronic-friendly style that would grow increasingly prominent on their following two records. For tax reasons, the band moved recordings away from their regular Surrey Sound studio and moved over to Wisseloord Studios in the Netherlands, bringing along producer Nigel Gray for the ride and on a still-modest budget of £35,000 (the majority of which was spent on rehiring Gray).
18
19	The recording atmosphere was much tenser than the band's first two albums: not only were both the tour and the album done at the behest of Creator/AAndMRecords, forcing the musicians to rush through the recording process, but CreativeDifferences between the three members were rapidly escalating. The band had long been, as they put it, a clash of three great egos, but here it started to reach even greater heights, culminating in a feud between Music/{{Sting}} and Andy Summers over the {{instrumental\|s}} track "Behind My Camel" that ended in Sting unsuccessfully attempting to dispose of the song's master tape by burying it in his backyard. The whole trio would later look back on the album as their creative nadir, levying particular ire at the tight schedule it was made under (completing it just hours before the tour's first show). They would later re-record both of its singles during their final recording sessions in 1986, with the new version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" acting as the center point for that year's GreatestHitsAlbum ''Every Breath You Take: The Singles''.
20
21	The album continued to improve the band's commercial fortunes, topping the charts in the UK and Australia and peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. It would go on to become the second-best-selling album of 1980 in the UK and the ninth-best-selling album of 1981 in the US, where it would be certified double-platinum. It would also receive a platinum certification in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, and New Zealand, and went gold in Germany.
22
23	''Zenyattà Mondatta'' was supported by two singles: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da". The former would be their third UK #1 single, and both would hit #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest they'd reached yet on the US Pop chart.
24
25	!!Tracklist:
26	[[AC:Side One]]
27	# "Don't Stand So Close to Me" (4:04)
28	# "Driven to Tears" (3:20)
29	# "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" (3:38)
30	# "Canary in a Coalmine" (2:26)
31	# "Voices Inside My Head" (3:53)
32	# "Bombs Away" (3:06)
33
34	[[AC:Side Two]]
35	# "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" (4:09)
36	# "Behind My Camel" (2:54)
37	# "Man in a Suitcase" (2:19)
38	# "Shadows in the Rain" (5:04)
39	# "The Other Way of Stopping" (3:22)
40	----
41	!!''General scratches his belly and tropes'':
42	* AbuseDiscretionShot: The song "Don't Stand So Close To Me" is about an inappropriate relationship between a teacher and an underage schoolgirl, but never actually says what happens between them. The first two verses are about the growing attraction between the two; the second verse ends "Wet bus stop, she's waiting, his car is warm and dry". Then the song cuts to the chorus. The third verse deals with the aftermath of the encounter.
43	* AlternateMusicVideo: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" has three different videos:
44	** The first one, produced for the 1980 version, is one of their standard [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNIZofPB8ZM "the band sing and muck about a room"]] videos, themed around a classroom setting in reference to the lyrics.
45	** The second one, produced for the 1986 version, is a [[Music/TenCc Godley & Créme]]-directed SurrealMusicVideo portraying the band spinning in place among computer-generated setpieces, including clips of and paraphernalia related to prior Police videos.
46	** The third video goes back to the 1980 version, being a holiday-themed showcase of the band skiing and riding snowmobiles alongside people in Santa suits in wintry Canada. This video actually was shot in 1980 concurrently with that for "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" (hence reusing the location), but remained unreleased until December 8, 2021, 41 years after its parent album came out.
47	* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The album title mixes "Zen" (as in Buddhism) with "Kenyatta" (as in the president of UsefulNotes/{{Kenya}}), the Italian word for "world" ("mondo"), and the title of their previous album, ''Music/ReggattaDeBlanc''. Oh, and an meaningless diacritic. It's evocative of the band's world-music-inspired sound, but that's it.
48	* CanaryInACoalMine: The song of the same name invokes the trope as a metaphor for the subject's various neuroses, drawing parallels between their susceptibility to being overcome by their paranoia and a canary's rapid death when exposed to toxic gas.
49	* CanisLatinicus: In the first video for "Don't Stand So Close to Me", the chalkboard in the classroom scenes features the schoolboy fake Latin poem "Caesar adsum jam forte / Brutus et arat / Caesar sic on omnibus / Brutus in his hat."[[note]]That is, "Caesar had some jam for tea / Brutus eat a rat / Caesar sick on omnibus / Brutus in his hat."[[/note]]
50	* DarkerAndEdgier: The subject matter here grows far more bleak and mature than on their previous two albums, themselves no strangers to dark topics. The first three songs alone respectively describe child sexual abuse, nihilism induced by worldwide suffering, and using escapism to avoid tense current events, and the tracks after them rarely ease up.
51	* ADayInTheLimelight: Andy Summers plays both guitar and bass on "Behind My Camel", which he composed. The {{instrumental\|s}} nature of the song also means that Sting doesn't perform any vocals, thus bringing Summers further into the forefront (though that didn't stop Sting from accepting the Grammy that the song won).
52	* DigitalDestruction: Due to a mastering error, the 1993 remaster adds a prominent click to the start of "Don't Stand So Close to Me".
53	* DroneOfDread: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" opens with a long, deep pair of synthesized hums, establishing the darker undercurrents within the lyrics.
54	* FadingIntoTheNextSong: The end of "Driven to Tears" hard-cuts into the beginning of "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around".
55	* HearingVoices: "Voices Inside My Head" describes the narrator as experiencing this.
56	* {{Instrumentals}}: "Behind My Camel" and "The Other Way of Stopping".
57	* LastNoteNightmare: "Shadows In The Rain", which closes off with a series of overlapping and increasingly atonal guitar jams.
58	* LyricalDissonance:
59	** "Don't Stand So Close to Me" is a jaunty-sounding tune about a teacher raping his student.
60	** "Canary in a Coalmine" sounds bouncy and upbeat, but the lyrics meanwhile describe the subject as pathetically weak-willed.
61	** "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" is a cheery little number about, depending on your interpretation, either the lies of media and politicians, or how the girlfriend would always twist the meaning of everything he said, so he was left only with nonsensical words that could not be interpreted.
62	* MythologyGag: The album title is partly a nod back to that of ''Music/ReggattaDeBlanc''.
63	* NewSoundAlbum: The band introduces synthesizers and ramps up the amount of effects used, resulting in a more atmospheric sound compared to their previous works while still retaining their {{reggae}} rock core.
64	* {{Portmantitle}}: In an interview, Stewart Copeland explained that the album title came from a series of {{portmanteau}}s: the first word comes from Zen and the name of Kenyan leader Jomo Kenyatta, while the latter is a combination of the Italian word for "world" and a nod to their earlier ''Music/ReggattaDeBlanc''.
65	* ProtestSong:
66	** "Driven to Tears" criticizes the West's inattention towards global poverty.
67	** "Bombs Away" is about the UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan, which began as the album was being recorded.
68	* RapeAsDrama: In an interview, Sting confirmed that the teacher in "Don't Stand So Close to Me" raped his student in his "warm and dry" car as part of the song's dramatic arc, and that the end of the song depicts him being deservingly fired for this.
69	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" was based in part on Sting's memories of having students crush on him during his stint as a professor. Fittingly, Sting plays one in the song's music video.
70	* RhymingTitle: ''Zeny'''attà''' Mond'''atta''''', "When the World Is Running '''Down''', You Make the Best of What's Still Ar'''ound'''".
71	* RoleEndingMisdemeanor: Occurs in-universe in "Don't Stand So Close to Me", where the teacher is fired after the rest of the staff discover that he raped a student.
72	* SanitySlippageSong: "Shadows in the Rain", narrated by an asylum patient who repeatedly asserts that he's mentally stable despite being delusional and suffering from severe anterograde amnesia.
73	* SawStarWarsTwentySevenTimes: The narrator in "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" mentions that he's been constantly rewatching ''Deep Throat'' (an infamous porn film) for "years and years."
74	* ShirtlessScene: Sting inexplicably takes his shirt and snowpants off midway through the Christmas video for "Don't Stand So Close to Me", with the camera lingering on the view of him bare-chested for some time. He eventually puts them back on near the end of the video.
75	* ShoutOut:
76	** The last verse of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" describes how the teacher, upon realizing that his sexual relationship with an underaged student is exposed, "starts to shake and cough, just like the old man in [[Literature/{{Lolita}} that book by Nabokov]]," an allusion to the controversial novel. In an interview, Sting described the book as his inspiration for the song's storyline.
77	** "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" references "Music/JamesBrown on the ''[[Film/TAMIShow T.A.M.I. Show]]''." The song additionally namedrops Music/OtisRedding and the notorious 1972 porn film ''Deep Throat''.
78	* SingleStanzaSong: "Voices Inside my Head".
79	* SuddenlyShouting: The first verse of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" is sung by Sting at his lower register. The last line adds a second track with him singing the same line a full octave higher, giving this impression. The later verses are at that octave and even higher, perhaps to emphasize the impropriety of the situation.
80	* TeacherStudentRomance: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" is a harsh {{deconstruction}}, depicting it as a sexually abusive relationship between the adult teacher and his underage student. The teacher ultimately gets fired for his actions, but it doesn't spare the student from being relentlessly bullied by her peers, especially once word about her rape gets out.
81	* TitleOnlyChorus: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around" (the latter by virtue of how outrageously long the title is).
82	* WhoWritesThisCrap: In the music video for "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da", Sting reacts to his own lyrics with confusion when singing "their logic ties you up and rapes you," mouthing "Rapes you?" to himself right after with a visibly bewildered look on his face.

Context Music / ZenyattaMondatta