I’ve heard this recently a few times; the refrain ends with a heavily stressed set of numbers, like a telephone number–Two Six Eight Four Three Six Nine, or something. Anyone know the title?
Well, if you’re sure it was the Police, maybe “Murder by Numbers.”
If you’re not sure it was the Police, I’d guess “Jenny” by Tommy Tutone.
I was thinking “Jenny” too but it really doesn’t sound much like the Police, although it is from the same period.
Yep, sounds like Murder by Numbers by the description…
ETA: it was the B-Side to Every Breath you Take. “Murder by numbers - 1, 2, 3; it’s as easy to learn as your A, B, C’s…”
Good song. One of favorites of theirs…
The refrain in Murder by Numbers is
“'cause it’s murder by numbers, 1,2,3…
it’s as easy to learn as your ABCs…”
I find it hard to reconcile that with “a heavily stressed set of numbers, like a telephone number–Two Six Eight Four Three Six Nine, or something”
I know the OP said it was a Police song, but I’m betting it’s Jenny
“eight-six-seven, five-three-oh-nine…”
Having just listened to it, I can see how the music might sound Police-ish…but the vocals are clearly “not Sting” 
Invisible Sun, maybe? It starts out with Sting counting to six.
This is my guess. Doesn’t sound like the Police, but is the only song I could think of that fits the description.
ETA: Oh, since it hasn’t been linked yet.
He’s probably confused because the standard police car is a two tone.
I’m think it’s “Invisible Sun.” It starts with a very slow and distinct count of 6 interspersed with music. One of their songs that isn’t as well known as it should be, IMHO.
Give it a listen:
I tried playing the melody on my Melodica, and I got:
F-B-A-G-F-E-F-D. It’s sung in a rather exuberant manner, by a mixed chorus. I hope that helps. (The B is the highest note.)
(YouTube stuff doesn’t play well on my computer–too much buffering.)
As an aside it would be awesome if there was a websire you could type “F-B-A-G-F-E-F-D” into and have it play the notes for you.
Just sayin’.
This will do you one better. You can type in the notes (although you need to specify the octave, so “f2 b2 a2 g2 f2 e2 f2 d2” for our example) and it will search its database to try to find a match.
No hits on that melody that work with the information given in the OP.
Whatever it is, that melody isn’t Jenny. There is some similarity in the contour of it, but Jenny is more like “C#-C#-D-D-C#-C#-B-C#-B-A.” It doesn’t fit with “Murder by Numbers,” either.
Are you sure they weren’t saying “Ee oh, ee oh, ee oh oh oh oh”? Seems like all of their songs had that. 
This reminds me of Warsaw by Joy Division: it starts off, not with a 1-2-3-4 call, but a “3 5 0 1 2 5 go!” The chorus simply consists of “3 1 g” repeated several times.
I mention it because Joy Division and early Police are fairly similar: intelligent, energetic punk/postpunk.
Could it have been Invisible Sun? It has number in it as well.
The Time (with Morris Day, remember him?) had “Seven seven seven ninety-three eleven” but it doesn’t sound anything at all like the Police, The Time being a Prince related group.
The Police always sounded a little bit like a reggae/lite punk fusion to me.
I’m betting on the Tutone song.
From Wiki (about The Police):
Wiki labels Tommy Tutone as “a power pop band.”
I could see a little cross over confusion with certain Police songs.
BTW, today, I’m listening to every Police song I own. Not as research for this thread, simply because their music is cool.
So - wait: did you listen to Murder by Numbers and rule it out?
…and while Jenny has chanting numbers at the very end, Tommy Tutone doesn’t sound much like Der Stingle, so hard to connect those dots, near as I can tell…
I am not in a position to play through the chords you picked out…may be able to try this at home…
(Those aren’t chords–that’s his approximation of the melody line.)
The reason I don’t think it’s “Murder By Numbers” is because the melody he plucked out has way too much step-wise movement, whereas the Murder By Numbers chorus melody is mostly Sting bouncing down and up a fifth, it’d be something like “B-B-B-E-E-B-B-E” (with the B being higher than the E).
This is assuming he is transcribing the chorus. The notes given don’t correspond to any melody I could think of, but there’s a vague chance it’s some rough approximation Jenny, with a lot of wrong notes. If you made all the Fs F#s in his tune, and made the first four notes “F#-F#-G-G” instead of “F-B-A-G,” then it’s a first order approximation of “Jenny.”
Got your logic; thanks. I will say, rather sheepishly, that off the top of my head, I believe I play Jenny with F# D A B as the chords underneath the signature riff which starts with a partial A chord up at the 5th fret and resolves on a partial B chord, kinda like what EVH uses to ping harmonics in Panama…