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EC Featured On Sting’s New Duets Album
29 Mar 21
Eric Clapton’s and Sting’s collaboration ‘It’s Probably Me’ is featured on Sting’s new album, Duets. Originally released in 1992, the song was co-written by Eric, Sting and Michael Kamen as the theme song for the third Lethal Weapon movie starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Watch new interview commentary from Sting about collaborating with Eric and read more about the song’s history, below.
In an interview with Timothy White in the June 20, 1992 edition of Billboard, Kamen told of the song’s origins in London’s SARM Studios West: “Eric kept picking out the bluesy chords of the basic Lethal Weapon theme, re-examining the melody line and in this quick continuous clicking motion, he’d simultaneously light one cigarette after another with his Zippo. Click! Fump! Click!” Steve McLaughlin, who was co-producing, sampled the Zippo sounds. Kamen continued “We wanted a ‘buddy song’ since the unlikely friendship between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover has always been the basis of the three films’ plots.” On April 6, EC and Kamen sent a compilation tape of musical cues to EC’s friend, Sting, so he could compose lyrics and melody.
Sting told White in the same 1992 Billboard article, “There’s a maturity in Eric’s work that we need and there’s an integrity there that just gets better and better. I’ve always thought he was one of the greatest ‘feel’ players ever. I walked around the property, listening to the cassette of rough ideas and I especially liked the percussive motif of the lighter sounds and the way the guitar chords moved. So I worked out a melody that would go over the theme’s changes and my pop-training told me it also needed an old-fashioned bridge.
“I began to think about the film’s characters and how there was a bond between them – but they’d probably be fairly reticent about expressing that bond because the of somewhat macho type of characters they were. Two days later, I came up with the key lyric phrase that said: When everything else fails, at least there’s one person that will stand up for you and ‘it’s probably me.’
“I carefully phrased the lyrics and wrote out the melodies that I thought would be Eric Clapton-like. And Eric came back saying, ‘Well, could you sing it?”
The men, along with Steve Gadd and David Sanborn, recorded the song in a marathon three-day session April 11-13, 1992 at New York’s BMG Studios, barely two months before the film’s release.
The song was nominated for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards and reached number 30 on the UK Singles Chart and number 20 on the US Mainstream Rock Chart.
STING: DUETS Track Listing:
1. Little Something with Melody Gardot
2. It’s Probably Me with Eric Clapton
3. Stolen Car with Mylène Farmer
4. Desert Rose with Cheb Mami
5. Rise & Fall with Craig David
6. Whenever I Say Your Name with Mary J. Blige
7. Don’t Make Me Wait with Shaggy
8. Reste with GIMS
9. We’ll Be Together with Annie Lennox
10. L’amour C’est Comme Un Jour with Charles Aznavour
11. My Funny Valentine with Herbie Hancock
12. Fragile with Julio Iglesias
13. Mama with Gashi
14. September with Zucchero
15. Practical Arrangement with Jo Lawry
16. None Of Us Are Free with Sam Moore
17. In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning with Chris Botti
“IT’S PROBABLY ME” MUSICIANS:
Eric Clapton – electric / acoustic guitars
Sting – vocals and bass
Michael Kamen – keyboards
David Sanborn – saxophone
Steve Gadd – drums
Don Atlas – percussion
Greater New York Alumni Orchestra – strings