Omegaman

"Omegaman"
Ghost In The Machine LP cover
Recorded by The Police
Released:	1981
Recorded:	1981-06-20 - 1981-07-26
Length:	2:48
Album(s):	Ghost In The Machine
Label(s):	A&M
Writer(s):	Andy Summers
Producer(s):	Hugh Padgham & The Police
Studio(s):	AIR Studios, Montserrat
Released as single?	NO

"Omegaman" is a song written by Andy Summers and recorded by The Police in 1981.

About the song

This song was not yet called Omegaman when The Police initially started to work on it - the working title was "I'm So Tired". An early version recorded by the whole band at AIR Studios features a different chorus with additional lyrics - one might also call it a bridge - followed by the backing vocals that are on the LP version (but no trace of "Omegaman").

There's a different guitar solo by Andy (see Quotations and Trivia) done with his Gibson ES-335 lefthand. Right before that guitar solo the words "Always Talking To Myself" are spoken by Andy, not sung by Sting. There's another bridge / chorus after the solo, followed by the last verse etc...

The long fade out at the end is absent on this early version - the instruments break off after the fourth time Sting sings "I'm So Tired". If you re-listen to the LP version's fade out you'll notice that they copied the instrumental parts to create a half minute fade-out. Stewart is playing the exact same break three times now...

Although this early version doesn't feature the long fade-out it's slightly longer than the LP version, due to the "bridge / chorus" parts with additional lyrics.

Andy recorded yet another solo with his Roland Guitar Synthesizer that was too weird for the LP, so what we hear on the LP is solo number 3!

This Andy Summers song was almost chosen as the first single from the Ghost In The Machine album (as chosen by A&M staff), but apparently Sting vetoed.

Personnel

This section needs more information.

Release History

Albums

Omegaman appears on the following album releases:

Cover art	Album title	Release date	Release country
	Ghost In The Machine	1981-10-02	UK
	Message In A Box: The Complete Recordings	1993-MM-DD	UK
	Every Move You Make: The Studio Recordings	2018-11-16	UK
	Ghost In The Machine (picture disc)	2022-11-04	worldwide

Lyrics

Lyrics are property and copyright of their owners, and provided here for educational purposes only.

• LP version lyrics:

The night came down, jungle sounds were in my ears
City screams are all I've heard in twenty years
The razor's edge of night, it cuts into my sleep
I sit upon the edge now
Shall I make that leap

I'm the Omegaman
I'm the Omegaman

The sky's alive with turned on television sets
I walk the streets and seek another vision yet
The echo makes me turn to see that last frontier
The edge of time closes down as I disappear

I'm the Omegaman
I'm the Omegaman
I'm the Omegaman
I'm the Omegaman
Always talking to myself

The time that's best is when surroundings fade away
The presence of another world comes close to me
It's time for me to throw away this paper knife
I'm not alone in reaching for a perfect life

I'm the Omegaman
I'm the Omegaman
I'm the Omegaman
I'm the Omegaman

I'm so tired
Of the Omegaman

• work in progress lyrics:

The night came down, jungle sounds were in my ears
City screams are all I've heard in twenty years
The razor's edge of night, it cuts into my sleep
I sit upon the edge now
Shall I make that leap

I'm so tired
I hardly know myself
something out there waits for me
at times anticipating me (?)

The sky's alive with turned on television sets
I walk the streets and seek another vision yet
The echo makes me turn to see that last frontier
The edge of time closes down as I disappear

I'm so tired
I hardly know myself
something out there waits for me
at times anticipating me (?)

Always talking to myself
(ES-335 solo)

I'm so tired
I hardly know myself
something out there waits for me
at times anticipating me (?)

The time that's best is when surroundings fade away
The presence of another world comes close to me
It's time for me to throw away this paper knife
I'm not alone in reaching for a perfect life

I'm so tired
I'm so tired
I'm so tired
I'm so tired

Quotations and trivia

In 1981-10 Music U.K. Andy Summers talks about the guitar solo in that song:

"The first thing I had done was to go in and play a very nice Larry Carlton type solo with the 335 - it ws very nice, but for The Police it was a little bit too.... derivative sounding, a little bit too straight. So I started again with the Multivox effects plugged up and I had the Roland guitar synth going through them. The Duet on the synth was switched to a minor second apart, which is pretty excruciating (laughs), through a fuzz and something, and it just sounded incredible! I could see their hair standing on end in the control room, they couldn't believe this fucking sound that was coming over! And I was having great fun, in hysterics, it was like ten cats being strangled. So I thought it was really exciting, and I did it, and they're going, "Yeah, yeah..." like a couple of roadies were in the studio. And Hugh was saying, "Yeah, pretty heavy.".

Course, finally Stewart and Sting came in, and there was dead silence, and they didn't like it. It was a bit too heavy for them. I was a bit disgruntled, but.... so I went back. I started again and found a figure that really worked. So I sort of used the same sound, but I returned the guitar synth to fifths, I think, played the figure on the end, and it worked really nicely with a normal electric guitar playing the figure and the guitar synth. That went down a little better, I s'pose it fitted the track a bit better. Not quite as hairy as the other one.

That's the first time I actually used guitar synth for a solo. Personally, for me, I don't really use it as a solo instrument playing lead solos, I like it as a chordal thing, like great sheets of sound. I really enjoy using it that way. Like there's an introduction to a song called Secret Journey, there's about a minute and a half of just guitar synth on it, I'm playing long chords, strange chords, it was fun to do that. There's a whole section in the middle of that with the guitar synth, too.

Into the intro to Secret Journey I'm playing these strange chords, with the synth tuned in fifths, and you get this sound, with echo and chorus on it. And also, against that I played some very weird stuff on a Strat, so you get this great sort of cloud effect untill the riff actually starts coming in, the riff sort of fades up through it and then the song starts. Then it shuts off (claps hands) like that in the middle and then you get wahhhhhhhhhhh.. the sound of the Himalayas comes in. It's good."

Alternative and cover versions

This section needs more information.

See also

This section needs more information.

External links

This section needs more information.

References

• Police, The. Ghost In The Machine. (1981) [Audio recording], A&M Records.
• The Police Enquiry