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{{EngvarB|date=May 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2015}}
{{Infobox song
| name = Synchronicity II
|
| alt =
| type = single
|
| album = [[Synchronicity (The Police album)|Synchronicity]]
| B-side = Once Upon a Daydream
| released = {{start date|df=yes|1983|10|28}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/Music-Week/1983/Music-Week-1983-10-22-I.pdf|title=Music Week|page=48}}</ref>
| recorded = {{Plainlist|
*Late 1982
*January 1983
}}
| studio = *[[AIR Montserrat]], [[Salem, Montserrat]] (basic tracks)
*[[Le Studio]], [[Morin-Heights]], Quebec (overdubs and mixing)<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar04/articles/classictracks.htm |title=Classic Tracks: The Police's 'Every Breath You Take' |last=Buskin |first=Richard |date=March 2004 |journal=Sound on Sound }}</ref>
| venue =
| genre = {{hlist|[[New wave music|New wave]]|[[post-punk]]<ref>{{cite book |title=All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music |page=[https://archive.org/details/allmusicguidedef00bogd/page/311 311] |publisher=Hal Leonard Corporation |date=2001 |isbn=9780879306274 |url=https://archive.org/details/allmusicguidedef00bogd/page/311 }}</ref>|[[progressive pop]]}}
| length = 5:04
| label = [[A&M Records|A&M]] (AM 153)
| writer = [[Sting (musician)|Sting]]
| producer = * The Police
* [[Hugh Padgham]]
| chronology = The Police UK
| prev_title = [[Wrapped Around Your Finger]]
| prev_year = 1983
| next_title = [[King of Pain]]
| next_year = 1984
| misc = {{Extra chronology
| artist = The Police US
| type = single
| prev_title = [[King of Pain]]
| prev_year = 1983
| title = Synchronicity II
| year = 1983
| next_title = [[Wrapped Around Your Finger]]
| next_year = 1984
}}{{Extra album cover
| header = Alternative cover
| type = single
| cover = Synchronicity_II_-_The_Police_(Brazilian_Cover_Art).jpg
| caption = Brazilian single picture sleeve
}}
{{External music video|{{YouTube|o5FPPoLqkCk|"Synchronicity II"}}}}
}}
"'''Synchronicity II'''" is a song by [[the Police]], and the third single from their album ''[[Synchronicity (The Police album)|Synchronicity]]''. Written by lead singer and bassist [[Sting (musician)|Sting]], it was released as a single in the UK and the US by [[A&M Records]], reached No. 17 in the [[UK Singles Chart]]<ref>[http://www.theofficialcharts.com/artist/_/police/ The Police in the UK Charts], The Official Charts.</ref> and No. 16 on the [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]] in December 1983.<ref>[{{BillboardURLbyName|artist=the police|chart=all}} "Synchronicity II" in the Billboard Charts], Billboard.com.</ref> It features the non-album track "Once Upon a Daydream" on the B-side. The song was described by ''People Weekly'' as "aggressive" and "steely."<ref name="people">"Synchronicity." ''People Weekly'' v20.(25 July 1983): pp14(1).</ref>
==Background==
The song, which refers to [[Carl Jung]]'s theory of [[synchronicity]], nominally tells the story of a man whose home, work life, and environment are dispiriting and depressing. Lyrics refer to "Grandmother screaming at the wall", as well as "Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration / But we know all her suicides are fake". The man is routinely denigrated by his boss ("and every single meeting with his so-called superior / Is a humiliating kick in the crotch") and ignored when he crosses a [[picketing|picket line]]; all the while "he knows that something somewhere has to break". Meanwhile, something monstrous is emerging from a "dark Scottish lake/loch", a reference to the [[Loch Ness Monster]]—a parallel to the father's own inner anguish.
{{quote|There's a domestic situation where there's a man who's on the edge of paranoia, and as his paranoia increases a monster takes shape in a Scottish lake, the monster being a symbol of the man's anxiety. That's a synchronistic situation.|Sting, 'A Visual Documentary', 1984<ref name="sting.com">{{cite web|title='Synchronicity II' / 'Once Upon a Daydream'|url=http://www.sting.com/discography/index/album/albumId/161/tagName/Singles%20(The%20Police)|website=sting.com}}</ref>}}
Interpretations of the lyrics vary widely.<ref name="songfacts">[http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1685 Interpretations] of the content of "Synchronicity II" on www.songfacts.com</ref><ref name="songmeanings">[http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=5936 Interpretations] of the content of "Synchronicity II" on www.songmeanings.net</ref> Writing in ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'' about a 1996 Sting tour, Chris Willman said:
{{Quote|"The late-inning number that really gets [the crowd] galvanized is the edgy old Police staple that has the most old-fashioned unresolved rock tension in it, 'Synchronicity II'—which, after all, is a song about a domestic crisis so anxiety-producing that it wakes up the [[Loch Ness Monster]]."<ref>"King of painlessness" (rock star Sting). Chris Willman. ''Entertainment Weekly'' n339 (August 9, 1996 n339): pp30(4).</ref>}}
[[Sting (musician)|Sting]] explained the theme of the song to [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']] magazine: {{Quote|"Jung believed there was a large pattern to life, that it wasn't just chaos. Our song ''Synchronicity II'' is about two parallel events that aren't connected logically or causally, but symbolically."<ref>"Official Police business" (music group Police). Jay Cocks. ''Time'' v122.(August 15, 1983): pp50(1).</ref>}}
"Synchronicity II" also may have taken inspiration from the poem "[[The Second Coming (poem)|The Second Coming]]" by [[William Butler Yeats]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/6cp2 |title=The Police Synchronicity Review |last=Jones |first=Chris |date=2007 |work=BBC Music |access-date=1 November 2014}}</ref> The theme of "The Second Coming" is similar to that of "Synchronicity II"—a civilisation beginning to collapse, and the rise of something new, something perhaps savage, to take its place.
In "Synchronicity II" guitarist [[Andy Summers]] "forgoes the pretty clean sounds for post-apocalyptic squeals and crashing power chords", writes Matt Blackett in ''Guitar Player'' magazine.<ref>"The 50 greatest tones of all time." (Critical Essay). Matt Blackett. ''Guitar Player'' 38.10 (Oct 2004): p44(17).</ref> Summers recalls how the feedback was created: "So I was in the studio with the Strat and two Marshalls full up, waiting for them to run the track. I put the headphones on and started messing around with the feedback, really giving it one... six minutes of screeching with my life passing before me on the guitar!"<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Overalls|publication-date=December 1983|magazine=One Two Testing|url=https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/overalls/4762}}</ref>
According to Summers, "Synchronicity II" was originally intended to be placed immediately after the song "[[Synchronicity I]]" on ''Synchronicity'', with a brief instrumental piece serving as a segue.
{{quote|"We had this section for 'Synchronicity' which we referred to as The Loch. I went in and detuned my guitar synth to C sharp and it produced a great wash of sound, lovely. And there was an acoustic on top, a few cymbals and an oboe, really serene. We were going to have it at the end of 'Synchronicity I' — it was supposed to be the Loch Ness Monster — and then it would go into 'Synchronicity II'. But we couldn't really get it to work. [[Miles Copeland III|Miles (Copeland)]] didn't like it... it was too psychedelic for him."<ref>{{cite magazine|title=One Two Tightened|magazine=One Two Testing|publication-date=December 1983|url=https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/one-two-tightened/4784#}}</ref>}}
The 2024 Super Deluxe box set of Synchronicity includes this piece under the title "Loch".
The flip side to the single, "Once Upon A Daydream", was a composition cowritten by Andy Summers and Sting. As Sting remembers, "It's a set of chords Andy came up with and I wrote some lyrics to them by the swimming pool in Monserrat. It's very dark but that was the ''[[Ghost in the Machine (album)|Ghost in the Machine]]'' period. Very intense".<ref>Message in a Box: The Complete Police Recordings, booklet, A&M, 1993</ref>
==Reception==
''[[Cash Box]]'' said the song "jumps with a contemporary rock drive" and praised Sting's vocal performance and Summers' and Copeland's "powerful" instrumental performances.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Reviews|magazine=Cash Box|url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/80s/1983/CB-1983-11-05.pdf|date=November 5, 1983|accessdate=2022-07-20|page=7}}</ref>
==Music video==
The music video for "Synchronicity II" was directed by [[Godley & Creme]], filmed at a sound stage on the outskirts of London. In it the band are seen performing on top of giant piles of guitars, drums, junk, car parts, wires, with debris and papers flying about, punctuated by footage of Loch Ness for the first and third choruses. The band members stood apart from each other on separate towers made of [[scaffolding]], wearing dystopian outfits. A misty and stormy appearance was created with air blowers and [[dry ice]]. The peculiar guitar Andy Summers is seen playing is a Gittler guitar. During the filming, Copeland's tower caught fire and the crew started to leave the building. Creme told the [[director of photography]] to keep the cameras rolling despite the danger.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zrBolXPYq40C&pg=RA3-PA9-IA23 |page=9 |title=I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution |first1=Rob |last1=Tannenbaum |first2=Craig |last2=Marks |publisher=Penguin |date=2011 |isbn=9781101526415}}</ref>
==Track listing==
{{tracklist
|
|headline=12" UK Single AMX 153
|title1=Synchronicity II
|length1=5:04
|title2=Once Upon a Daydream
|length2=3:28
}}
==Personnel==
*[[Sting (musician)|Sting]] – bass, vocals
*[[Andy Summers]] – guitar, keyboards
*[[Stewart Copeland]] – drums
==Charts==
{|class="wikitable"
!Chart (1983–1984)
!Peak<br />position
|-
{{single chart|Canadatopsingles|21|chartid=3026|access-date=25 January 2024}}
|-
{{single chart|Ireland2|12|song=Synchronicity|access-date=25 January 2024}}
|-
{{single chart|UK|17|date=19831106|access-date=24 June 2016}}
|-
|US [[Cashbox (magazine)|Cashbox]]<ref name="Cash Box">{{cite book|last=Whitburn|first=Joel|title=[[Cashbox (magazine)| Cash Box Pop Hits 1952-1996]]|publisher=Sheridan Books, Inc.|year=2014|isbn=978-0-89820-209-0}}</ref>
|align="center"|15
|-
{{single chart|Billboardhot100|16|artist=The Police|access-date=25 January 2024}}
|}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{The Police}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:The Police songs]]
[[Category:1983 singles]]
[[Category:Music videos directed by Godley and Creme]]
[[Category:Songs written by Sting (musician)]]
[[Category:Song recordings produced by Hugh Padgham]]
[[Category:Loch Ness Monster]]
[[Category:1983 songs]]
[[Category:A&M Records singles]]
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