1978 · Behind the Songs
A five-minute lyric, a shocking cover, and a single that refused to stay a flop.
The Police’s second single arrived on August 17, 1978, lifted from their debut album Outlandos d’Amour. Sting wrote “Can’t Stand Losing You” about teenage suicide — a dark subject he later called “always a bit of a joke” — and claimed the lyrics took him about five minutes. The B-side was “Dead End Job.” On paper, it was just another new-wave 45.
The cover made sure it wasn’t. The original sleeve showed drummer Stewart Copeland standing on a block of ice with a noose around his neck, waiting for the ice to melt — a literal illustration photographed by Peter Gravelle. The BBC banned it, and the single stalled at number 42 in the UK in late 1978.
But the song wouldn’t stay down. Reissued in June 1979, “Can’t Stand Losing You” climbed to number 2 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the band’s breakthrough hit at home. Along the way, the band made its first television appearance performing the song on BBC2’s Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978 — the same broadcaster that had banned the sleeve.
It’s a perfect early Police story: provocation, a stumble, then a triumph on the second try. The noose photo is long gone from the sleeves, but the song’s nervous energy — that reggae-tinged desperation — still sounds like a band with everything to prove.