The Police’s Synchronicity popped on 6.17.83 — nearly 38 years ago. I used to listen to the cassette version on headphones, or via my little two-speaker system in my Harper Avenue apartment. I still listen to this album occasionally, and as I was driving to the market the other night I was feeling especially turned on by the perfectly mixed “Miss Gradenko.” And chuckling, I should add, at Stewart Copeland‘s nonsensical lyrics.

Please read them after the jump — you could call them a criticism of Russian Communism in the ’80s, but to me they’ve never amounted to a hill of fucking beans. But of course, what is rock music if not great-sounding songs with WTF take-’em-or-leave’em lyrics, and sometimes spazzy, dead-end lyrics that would anesthetize your soul if you paid them any mind? I’m intensely proud of the fact that I’ve been ignoring the lyrics to “Miss Gradenko” for nearly 40 years.

Name your favorite nonsensical rock-tune lyrics. And don’t bring up “Louie Louie” — that song is about a guy who wants to get laid and can’t stop dreaming about it.

Don’t tell the director I said so
But are you safe Miss Gradenko
We were at a policy meeting
They were planning new ways of cheating
I didn’t want to rock your boat
But you sent this dangerous note

You’ve been letting your feelings show
Are you safe Miss Gradenko
Miss Gradenko are you safe
Are you safe Miss Gradenko
Miss Gradenko are you safe

Is anybody alive in here
Is anybody alive in here
Is anybody at all in here
Nobody but us in here
Nobody but us
Is anybody alive in here
Nobody but us

Your uniform don’t seem to fit
You’re much too alive in it
You’ve been letting your feelings show
Are you safe Miss Gradenko
Miss Gradenko are you safe

Is anybody alive in here
Is anybody alive in here
Is anybody at all in here
Nobody but us in here
Nobody but us
Is anybody alive in here
Is anybody alive in here
Is anybody at all in here
Nobody but us in here
Nobody but us
Nobody but us in here
Nobody but us