2002Released
5:01

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Walking On The Moon. By Songfacts®.

Sting was visiting the German avant-garde composer Eberhard Schoener in early 1979. One night they went out on a schnapps drinking session. Sting returned to his Munich hotel room drunk, slumped on his bed when this song's riff came into his head. He got up and starting walking around the room to try to clear his head muttering to himself, "Walking round the room, walking round the room." The next morning he wrote down the riff and decided that "Walking round the room" was a stupid title so he changed it to an even more stupid one, which was "Walking On The Moon." The song is set in space, but it's an allegory for how Sting felt when he was on the road, confined to hotel rooms and stages as the world kept turning.

The song's video was shot at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 23, 1979. Stewart Copeland took the opportunity to drum on a Saturn V rocket that served as backdrop. It was directed by Derek Burbidge, who did all of their early videos.

Police drummer Stewart Copeland used a Roland RE-201 Space Echo unit on this track, which allowed him to create another track of delay that accentuates the moon theme. He did it live, triggering the unit with a foot pedal and listening to the delay as he played. He got the idea from reggae dub music an echo. "Each repeat is not a repeat of the immediate note preceding it, it's a repeat of the note before that, which gives it this interesting kind of wobbling rhythmic effect," he explained in a Songfacts interview. "I was doing that on the drums, and Andy was doing that on the guitar, and we figured that out. Years later, everybody's doing it - check in with U2 and part of their sound is that delay line effect." The Space Echo units were some of the goodies they bought at Manny's Music in New York City when the money came in from their first hit, "Roxanne."

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Walking On The Moon.
DKey
MinorMode
4/4Time Signature
146BPM

Album

The album Walking On The Moon is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Walking On The Moon.
Universal Music Group
© 2002 A&M Records Inc.
℗ 2002 A&M Records Inc.

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