Bruce performed the song 7 times:

• during Amnesty International - Human Rights Now! tour  

Always together with Sting

 

Rainforest Foundation Concert: The setlist details of this show are incomplete. Bruce's only performance of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and first ever performance in the U.S. of "Every Breath You Take". A private dinner-concert held on the beautiful estate of movie producer and investor Ted Field. This was a fundraiser for the Rainforest Foundation’s fight to preserve the Amazon ecosystem, billed as “An Evening In Brazil”. About 800 guests attended (the cream of Hollywood’s music/movie 'A' list), each donating/paying $5,000 a head for the privilege. The event raised about one million dollars. It was Sting who organized getting Springsteen and the others to participate in the all-star group. Bruce Hornsby, a member of the "Allstars" lineup, has jokingly commented: "It was quite a band. It was a hilarious night – actually it was basically a bunch of (band) leaders playing sidemen and butchering each others tunes. We rehearsed for two days though – we really tried to get it right."  

 

Charity concert marking Sting's 60th birthday and 25th anniversary of his solo career, with proceeds going to the Robin Hood Foundation to fight poverty. With all artists performing Sting's songs, Bruce plays "I Hung My Head" with Sting's band, before embarking on a solo acoustic "Fields Of Gold". Sting joins Bruce for "Can't Stand Losing You". The finales "Every Breath You Take" and "Happy Birthday" are with all the night's artists on stage, including Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Branford Marsalis, Rufus Wainwright, will.i.am, Bryn Terfel, and Mary J. Blige, plus Sting himself, along with his wife Trudie Styler and a Gaelic bagpipe troupe. 

 

 

 

"Every Breath You Take" is a song by The Police from their album Synchronicity (1983). Written by Sting, the single was the biggest US and UK hit of 1983, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks (the band's only  No. 1 hit on that chart), and the UK Singles Chart for four weeks. It also topped the Billboard Top Tracks chart for nine weeks. At the 26th Annual Grammy Awards the song was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and Record of the Year, winning in the first two categories. For the song, Sting received the 1983 British Academy's Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. The song is considered to be both the Police's and Sting's signature song, and in 2010 was estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of Sting's music publishing income. Sting wrote the song in 1982 in the aftermath of his separation from Frances Tomelty and the beginning of his relationship with Trudie Styler. Their split was controversial. As The Independent reported in 2006, "The problem was, he was already married – to actress Frances Tomelty, who just happened to be Trudie's best friend (Sting and Frances lived next door to Trudie in Bayswater, West London, for several years before the two of them became lovers). The affair was widely condemned." In order to escape from the public eye, Sting retreated in the Caribbean. He started writing the song at Ian Fleming's writing desk on the Goldeneye estate in Oracabessa, Jamaica. The lyrics are the words of a possessive lover who is watching "every breath you take; every move you make". I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realise at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control. Sting later said he was disconcerted by how many people think the song is more positive than it is. He insists it is about the obsession with a lost lover, and the jealousy and surveillance that follow. "One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'" When asked why he appears angry in the music video, Sting told BBC Radio 2, "I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite." According to the Back to Mono box-set book, "Every Breath You Take" is influenced by a Gene Pitney song titled "Every Breath I Take". Led Zeppelin's song, "D'yer Mak'er" (1973), also contains the words "every breath I take; every move I make".