Dissect DJs - The Police - Message in a Bottle

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

We finally book-end the second half of "Sting Week/Month" and break down The Police's 1979 classic "Message in a Bottle", and try to determine if this song is a true story, a metaphor, or perhaps something much, much deeper... 🤔 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We promised. We finally did it. We're here. We're talking about it all month. It is police week. Three weeks later. Yeah. Police month. Whatever.

You get their idea. Yes, and this is one of my favorite songs. My uncle actually sings this songs at all of our family parties that he ever sings at. And he kills it. And I've always, since I was a kid, wondered, what is he talking about? What is this message? What is this man talking about? And we are going to do that today.

because we are the dissect DJs And it's your boy DJ MCJJJG in the building with your boy Steve and I'm Steve So your uncle like just sings at family parties? Oh yeah he's our singer He gets on the guitar He gets on a guitar he'll be like

It's like karaoke or does like acapella with Sometimes he has a band But sometimes he'll just get his guitar like Christmas He just has a guitar and he sings songs And we're all kind of like What's his name? Uncle Ralph Shout him out.

All right Uncle Ralphie What up, Uncle Ralph? I know you ain't listening to my podcast but I'll show you this clip and that way you know I give you a shout out and you won't care. I don't know why we're talking about it. But there are those who do care because it's finally Sting Week. We called it out about a month ago.

We finally finished it off with message in a bottle because we are the DJs that like to spin it, mix it, throw it back and dissect it. And this is the gentleman goes all the way back to 1979, which I did not realize until I just looked it up. right now. And we kept referring to it as SOS. Yeah, because he says that a lot, but apparently the song is just called Message in the Bottle, which is actually the obvious choice for the song. I think I would have gone on with SOS.

I think it's a little bit more obvious. Yeah. I'll send an SOS. I could see why you would have gone with SOS because it comes out first there and it's pretty prominent and stands out. However, let's talk about this message that he put in a bottle. This man is a castaway.

on an island lost at sea. So as a kid I was like, man, this guy's by himself, just on an island. Do you do it a purpose or do you think it was like a Tom Hanks situation? No way of knowing. No way of knowing if he was Wilsoning it. Wilsoning it. Wilsoning it. On a castaway situation or something.

But possibly he says castaway. Or. That's where they got the movie name from. I mean, castaway is the term for. somebody that's lost at sea so that that makes sense of that that that lends to the reason that they titled that but is this we're going to figure this out as we dissect this song is this a tongue-and-cheek thing is it like a metaphor for how this person's life is going how they are living and residing in society perhaps in a lonesome environment so let's figure it out he says just

a castaway and i'm lost at sea Oh, another lonely day With no one here but me Oh, there you go Right away Second line I think answered some questions By himself Which actually could still go to both ways

But I feel like just as I read that It felt like maybe somebody that's just living Without really any friends right now No no, it's more loneliness Than any man could bear The very next line Rescue me because I felt Before I fall into despair

I still stand by This could be just somebody that is just maybe struggling with life. Maybe their friends have out moved away. Maybe they don't really have anybody close to them at the moment. Yeah. And nobody sees it as they go over out their daily biddings. But he kind of could use a little SOS from the world.

Yeah, no, this is a guy stuck on an island. Okay. A castaway lost at sea. It's like you said. And he finds a bottle. So he puts an SOS. He sends an SOS to the world a couple times, and then he really hopes that somebody gets his message in a bottle.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh, message in a bottle, yeah. I think we covered the genesis of the beginning, so see what else he's got to say? Can I just say that I am enjoying the hell out of watching this very 1979 video? So we got the video running as we do it And they are going back and forth Between a couple of live shots

Of them performing it spliced in Which actually is really helping out the video Because it seems like the rest of it is just one long shot On them what Appears to be them playing in either a locker room Or maybe a cabin on a boat It looks like the Montreal Expos Locker room that they decided to have a concert in

Yeah yeah And they were just like hey real quick We need a video for this And Sting is really like a real quick, we need a video for this and Sting is rocking his finest Tucker Carlson bowtie. And with what appears to be kind of like a Navy jacket or something, I don't know. I don't really know what they're going for. I really feels like, again, we got to understand this is 1979.

This is before music videos were a thing. There was no MTV. There was no place to venture out with the music video visuals. So back then this was how you did it. It was just like, hey, let's just record us on stage, maybe do one little shot of us to, but like there was this amazing shot earlier in the video of him just kind of doing this move back and forth while the guitar kept, he's doing this slap the guitar move, you know, and you hear a lot of, or is he playing the bass? It's hard to tell sometimes.

Probably a bass. But he literally keeps slapping it, and I've never learned the bass, but he's, I've always, like, wondered when I hear that, like, what is that, is that actually a way that you play it? Because he's legit slapping it. He's not stroking it. I think he does some strokes in there I don't know man All I know is I mean Going with the story

A year has passed Since he wrote the note He should have known right from the start Only hope can keep him together Love can mend your life And love can break your heart See so he's stuck on a fucking island He misses his wife

And she She probably is It's like Probably sleeping with his brother now and now he knows that, and now she's breaking his heart because he's on an island. He can't do anything about it, and she's, you know, being her older brother. Oh, my dark. Huh?

Oh, my dark. Why don't you go right to that? That's what I'm insinuating. Before you were insinuated, he's a legitimate loss on an island. Yeah, and because of that, his brother's now marrying his wife, and they now had a kid. So now he's the uncle of his wife's. So his son is actually, and his son is actually cousins and brothers. I will admit that a year has passed since I wrote my note.

Feels like he's legit lost at sea. It could also be a year. It's been a year that he decided in your mind, what you're saying, it's been a year since he has been lost and been looking and wrote the note for help in the world of depression and trying to find a way out of it. Now, taking this back to 1979, what if we're using this as a metaphor, what way could somebody have written that note?

Because nowadays, you could say that is a metaphor for a tweet, perhaps, like you sent out a cryptic tweet, maybe an Instagram post that suggested that, you know, you were kind of out there on an island on your own and you were kind of waiting for somebody to reach out to you, maybe. In 1979, I don't really know how, For Sting's purposes, I suppose he could have wrote a song, and then that song was supposed to be the note.

But other than that, unless you're like the head of a rock group, I don't know exactly how you would have put that. Maybe he actually did just put a message in a bottle, like asking for help. Like, I don't know, maybe this will help. I'm so depressed, maybe all. Kind of a shitty way to get your note out there. Get you. Realize the, it's like basically tying a note to a carrier pigeon

and hoping that that actually gets somewhere. And you never know what's going to happen. And that's why the final verse, explains what happens to that bottle. That's why I think it's a guy that threw a bottle in the ocean when he's been lost to sea because the third line tells it. Are you ready for it? Yeah, but he said love can man your life.

Yeah, no, that's just more. I think that's what I'm telling you. That's where the brother's banging. Nice. He's marrying and now his son is actually his cousin at the same time. Really committed to that part of the story. You know, man, I've foreseen. But listen, watch, watch.

You'll know by the third line. Here we go. And that's the end of that song. They just go, send a n'ad an assos. Fuck that. Send a nod of nests For the rest of the song Cut the episode

You're not doing that You're not cutting out that part First of all What you like that part? Yes of course That's the best part of the song I called it out I called it on the last

The rest of the thing Because that's when the guitar takes over in the third verse You're not Gonna cut that part out Let's listen to it then No I wanted to talk about verse three Oh I was just going to let the song play out

No I got to talk about verse three All right go ahead Okay. I'm right. We got to talk about verse three. I'm right. He walked out this morning. He doesn't believe what he saw. A hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore.

A hundred billion bottles. Okay? So that means... He's not alone and being alone. That's what he's getting at, but if he's actually a guy who's alone at sea, this is where that just blew up. Because a hundred... Think about how much a billion is.

times that shit by a hundred now. Take a million and then take like a million millions. That's a billion. Now you want to go to a hundred of that. We're talking more than like Jeff Bezo makes right now. It's a pretty dirty-ass beach. Yeah, and they need to clean that shit up real quick. The point is it's impossible that somebody lost at sea.

All of a sudden one day finds a hundred billion. bottles. So what he's saying is, maybe this is Sting who put out a note and he's just like, I'm just a lonely fellow whose name is actually Gordon, but I go by Sting. And I'm going to make this song singing about my heart and how it's the loneliest of all. And then he got a bunch of letters written to him being like, don't give up, Gordon, we believe in you. We love your music. Keep it going. Rep the police, you know, and that's the only way I can imagine a hunter and Billy and anything. like you don't even get a hundred million replies or hundred billion replies of tweets right now you know if you're like he went viral viral viral viral like that's like viral viral list of all the virals that's

ever happened and they all came in the form of a bottle with a message on it right that's bullshit that doesn't exist definitely a bad way of getting your message out i feel like if he had just said a a hundred million or even just a hundred bottles would have worked to say 100 000 might yeah That's a good number. A hundred thousand bottles. Watched a bad show. That makes it a little more believable and still an excessive amount. I'm literally now more loss than ever on what we're talking about,

but I know it cannot be an actual man washed at sea. Like there's a cryptic message that's going on here, and then he continues to send an SOS out to the world. And now you wanted us to just shore up the song right there. I'd be like, that's it. Well, I'm doing karaoke. The last part sucks. You don't keep doing it.

Well, that's different. We're not doing karaoke. I mentioned when we did first song of police, Every Breath You Take, which everybody should listen to right now because that was another excellent episode that discussed the entirety of Sting and the police... Creepers.

It was a real creepy song, yeah. Creepier than Sting's bow tie in this shot. But the thing that I said that I really got to about the song when I really loved it is the third verse, the guitar just takes over. And I talked about how I loved playing the song guitar hero. I never played guitar. This is the only song I really liked

doing this and like the song by the killers when they're like he doesn't look a thing like jesus i like that song too because guitar and both these songs rock but this is the part right here third verse tar just slays and that i will not let you shorten it on and we're gonna jam to that right now you're gonna stand up and you're doing their guitar to it watch i hope there's more to the video what's going on here that's just an ending Yeah, they didn't really have stories to videos back then. They kept showing those kids with, like, the bleach hair. Like, they had something going on in the video, but...

I don't know. Anyways, I really think they had to do it. Stick it to my story. Guy lost at sea. Throughout a bottle. Found out there was a hundred. You just switched on your story. What are you talking about?

You didn't stick to that. What did me I switched? When we got to the 100 billion bottles washed up shore, we were like, yeah, that's not... It's an excessive amount, but it's still him through in a bottle and he was cast away. So you're saying that he actually sent a bottle out. with a message in it, just hoping somebody saw it, and 100 billion people happened to get that bottle, and they all replied via bottle message?

No, no, no, you got the wrong side of it. What I think is, he sent out a message, and then, we'll say the tide or whatever, brought all the trash to that island or a certain part that he saw, and it's everybody else that's also lost at sea. There's 100 billion other people there lost at sea. You sure this isn't a metaphor or something? It really feels like a metaphor.

No. This is just because you're hard-headed. then you don't want to try to change up your business. I just know there's 100 billion bottle. I think he went on different islands. You know how you go excessive with stuff and you're like you'll say, oh, it's, there's 48 of them. There's like 12 and you're like to go, that's what he's doing.

A hundred billion bottles. There's probably 100,000 bottles. A lot of trash. Probably 20. Much of messages. And he was like, yeah, there's a bunch of other people that are lost too. How are they going to find me? That's what it is.

First of all, I don't do that. I did it in that Beyonce song a couple weeks back. You got it twice. Where I was like, she said, you can't break my soul 12 times you said that 12 times and it was actually like four okay and now you're acting like it's a thing that I just do

every single time you're an excessiveizer cessifizer I'm not an excessifizer sting now sting is an excessifizer because he's trying to say 100 billion and it was probably like 20 20 bottles 20 thousand maybe I'll give them 50 you imagine what 50 bottles would look like if they washed up

you'd be like what the fuck there's like a thousand bottles out here and he all went all the way up to 100 billion there's no nobody's ever had a hundred billion anything tell me somebody that's had a hundred billion of anything that's ever happened you could count the amount of speckles on the stucco ceiling in your place if you counted every single one you wouldn't even get to a million a hundred billion it's impossible i would venture to say there's not a hundred billion people on the planet there's not there's only seven billion but has there been a hundred billion

people in total? Hmm. I don't even know if that's true. It's an unreachable number, is all I'm saying. So the idea that that many bottles is thinking hard about it. It's a deep number. I don't think so. You think Google has an answer for that?

I would say there's probably in total that's ever been on humans. This is actually an excellent question for Google. I would say there's like 60 billion. I would say 60 billion total that have ever been. 60 billion humans have ever been

walked. That's a good number. What's it say? 117 billion. Species. So that's the species. That's counting everything. That's like the platypus.

Yeah, but I want to know how many humans. Fire ants. How many humans have been on Earth total? Like lived and then died total added up. Anteaters. Like you got Adam and Eve, their kids, than their kids, than their kids than us. I want to know how many...

How many humans total? They got the same answer. This is why you just can't... Oh, wait, wait. Fuck you, Google. PRB. And now I'm going to a website, which means you know you're going to get...

Yeah, this is where you got that answer from. Oh, man. Members of our species. Okay, that was our species. Okay. 117. Yes, since going back to 200,000 BC. So,

point is... A shit ton of people. $1,17 billion total ever. Yeah, that's their estimation, which honestly is a bullshit estimation. There's no way anybody could actually have an accurate data. That's what was going on, 200,000 BC. But the point is, no, sting,

there was not a hundred billion bottles that washed ashore. Even if you're talking about you putting out a song about your loneliness and then a lot of people respond. You're really on this 100 billion. You got like 200. He said it. I didn't say it. Yeah, because it's a ridiculous overestimation.

He excessifies. She excessifies. He excessifies. Stop putting me in the same category with Sting here. Just because I said 12 instead of 4. We were talking about the Beyonce song. Three times as much. So let's say he did three times as much.

100 billion. That means there's probably like 30 billion. First time I heard, you don't break my soul. You don't break my soul? I thought she said it like maybe like eight times. I excessified to 12. And it turned out it was actually just four. So you three times.

But she said it a lot during the song. She said it more times of 12 during the song. So in that sense. We're not talking about that. It was kind of accurate. How many times you think he says, send it out an SOS at the end there. Total.

Just take a guess. I'll say 12. I'll say 12. 16. That was pretty close. There was no excessifying on that one. No, you did well there. You did.

I think you knew your... I possibly going to say... I think in your brain you were like 38. And you were like, no, no, it's probably not that. It's probably... Yeah, she says it a shit down in times. When you see it in the lyrics, it's jarring. And then actually, what's weird is the last one.

Tell me if this is the same for you. It says sending out an... S-O-blue. No. Your shit's awful like that. No, I got genius, I'm actually. A piece of shit.

Genius is genius. They believe in the S-O. Blue. Your lyrics always suck. All right, dude, give me your... Use the most basic lyrics that they give you. Give me your slaps and snaps on the news story. Mine has the year that it released, which is, by the way, October 2nd, 1979,

produced by the police and Nigel Gray, on their album, Regatta de Blanc. track one it's a big deal back then it's a great way to kick off your album that was back when the singles were important and you would listen

when you listen to the album it's the first thing that would play it was important because there was a record back then and you needed the first one to be a kickoff jam and the first song sucked that had a big impact on how much listening value

that album had just something worth listening to I think something worth thinking about there was every time they were at a concert or something they were like who's coming They were like, the police. They're like, the police are coming.

They're like, yeah, the police. They're like, yeah, the police. No, but the police. And then the police are coming. We're like, no, I thought he said the police were coming. No, but the police. We met the police. Not the police.

I know what you're going for right now, but I don't think it's hitting. Oh, okay. They got the mark. Trying to go for like a who's on first kind of deal. Well, yeah, but it's police. Or like the band, yes. Yeah, anyways. All right, dude.

I'm going to give you my slap. Yeah, give me your. I'm going to start me out once. Messaging a bunch. bottle because of my uncle, because of the background point, because I like it so much, and because of the story that I just found out, it was exactly what I always thought it was. And I'm sticking to it.

Whoa. What was that? Message in the motto. He goes, whoa. Yeah, no, I know it does that. Yes, that's it. They are leaving at, whoa. That's a very...

That is one of them. You added message the bottles. No, no, no. I just wanted to show you where I was getting it from. My official snap is... Whoa. All right. I gotta say the way your mouth, like, kind of goes,

when every time you do, whoa. It's the same way, like, when Justin drinks out of a soda, like he opens his mouth to the side and, like, just pours it in. Your mouth goes at, like, a diagonal pattern. It's really quite fascinating to watch. You did it, like, every time you did everything. It was fascinating. It's like a Muppet.

Nobody cares on the podcast. What do you do? be giving it. We're indifferent. We've got to pretty much think the same thing about it. Yeah, three slaps. Good song. Fine with three slabs. Look, we pushed off Sting Week. I will say it kicks off our 80s month. Oh shit. Soundbite. Big news on the forefront. We are going into the month of August and that is going to be 80s month with the dissect DJs. We're about to hit up some of your favorite 80s jammed and 80s music. Any song that embodies what the 80s spirit is, we're out to hit that.

So, you know. So thank you, police, for starting us off. Yeah, that's a good point. And thanks for sending that message in a bottle where you... It was actually 1979, so they were a little bit. That's why they missed the cut, but we were way overdue on doing police week. So thank you for bookending the month, though. Thank you, Uncle Ralphie.

And thank you to the 1980s. There's one for you, both of us would not be here. We look forward to dissecting y'all. Thanks for boning, Mom. next laughing the fuck am I supposed to

take a tear sir you say that straight face she had the bone yeah I get it your mom had the bone too it ordered for us

stop it are we getting next next