#Opening harmony

The track’s opening, as well as its overall frame, is with an Aeolian VI–VII–i harmony, beginning with a C minor chord, to D minor chord, to E, on electric guitar. Stewart Copeland’s signature hi-hat can be heard as well.

The Aeolian mode is also known as the “natural minor scale.” Another famous use of the Aeolian VI–VII–i harmony can be heard in the chorus of The Beatles’s “I am the Walrus.”

http://youtu.be/Ap6kSV_U45o?t=55s

#Summers arpeggios

In the main riff, guitarist Andy Summers places a delicate series of sixteenth-note arpeggios that take on a more classical guitar feel; in particular, the études of Heitor Villa-Lobos, the founding father of modern classical music in Brazil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_GIu7dDeUQ

Summers spent six years studying classical guitar at California State University in Northridge, CA, after he had already played in legendary bands like The Animals, Soft Machine, and Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band.

We get a repeat of the first two lines of the song with a slight variation, possibly accentuating just how much our narrator is cautious on his appearance and how much they have been wanting to make contact with this person they admire. The way the character is portrayed in the lyrics doesn’t help him, however. He seems too introverted and self-conscious to let it be a natural interaction with this love interest judging by the “heebie-jeebies” (a childish way to describe nerves), the cold sweat, and the premature end of a phone call.

http://www.girlschase.com/content/tactics-tuesdays-making-first-phone-call-girl

There is a resulting depression from breaking off a relationship with someone. It is a combination of having to suffer a huge loss and the awkwardness of adjusting to a new situation. A comfort that the person will always be there at the end of the day is removed, and the bed is left with a giant gap where a person used to be. That lingering loneliness is the motive behind the lyrics.

The moment of falling in love has been compared to feeling weightlessness, or lightness, as if you were “walking on air” or having your “head in the clouds.” The analogy is the basis of the song and in the case of these lines the narrator is forecasting a life of being in love.

Our narrator seems to disregard the value of his own life, so he’s driving in the freeway lane designated for the slowest of drivers. The tone of the lyrics suggests that he is speeding and driving erratically, and weaving into “the slow lane” will almost assuredly cause a traffic accident.

(Except in the UK, Australia and various countries in Asia, Africa and South America)

In Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, the protagonist, Gary Gilmore, is charged with robbing and killing two men. Then, his insistence on dying for his crime leaves his fate uncertain. His days are numbered, but for a majority of the book’s duration he is unsure of when it will all end.

Though originally written about Pontius Pilate, a biblical figure, and the judge who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, it is understandable why Sting later chose to associate the lyrics with Gilmore.

Following the idea that the song presents different risky situations that the narrator presents as something their subject finds normal, this verse may reference a dangerous night in a big city filled with drinking and “no lives” with flick knives.

This may not end well.