Roxanne, now isn't this a lovely song. Written by Sting, this song was released in Outlandos d'Amour, The Police's first album in 1978. This album was released with a very small budget, and was only recorded when Surrey Sound had free time or a band cancelled. The word "Outlandos" comes from a mix of outlaws and commandos, and "d'Amour" is French for "of love", this was proposed when the funding of the band, Miles Copeland heard Roxanne, and pictured the band in a more romantic sense. Due to the small amount of advertising, and controversial song lyrics, this song hardly received any publicity upon its release, but grew in popularity and rose to #6 on the UK's top album charts. As many of the songs by The Police, the music is fairly simplistic, with only three instruments and no track layering. This gives the song an inexplicable quality of bareness and unneeded adornment. They do a great job in this song of volume control, crashing and ebbing on the verse and chorus respectively, showing emphasis upon the verse. The subject of this song is love and prostitution. In France, Sting saw many a harlot and wrote a song about falling in love with one such cocotte, Roxanne. In this song, Sting expresses his distaste for her choice of career, and tries to convince Roxanne to find work in another field.
