Murder by numbers ... performed in Vancouver on May 28th 2007:



The lyrics describe how to get in the mindset of killing people. Sting said it is about the evil deeds of politicians. Sting wrote this with guitarist Andy Summers. it was their only collaboration on Synchronicity. Most of the album was written entirely by Sting.
This was used as the B-side of "Every Breath You Take," but it was omitted from the vinyl copy of Synchronicity. At the time, vinyl copies went on sale before cassettes, and CD technology was just emerging. Many people would buy the vinyl copies right away, so leaving this off encouraged them to also purchase the "Every Breath You Take" single or the cassette.
At some concerts, Sting introduced this by saying it was about the manipulation of large groups of people, knowing that the audience were being manipulated the whole time.
TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart said that this was performed by "The sons of Satan." In 1988, a few years after he made his comments, Swaggart was involved in a sex scandal.
Sting appeared at a Frank Zappa concert after meeting the eccentric composer before the show. When he got onstage, the band started to play this as Sting talked about the comments Jimmy Swaggart made about this song being written by Satan, Beelzebub, and Lucifer. He concluded by saying, "I wrote the f**king song, alright?" He went on to sing the whole song with the band and the track appears on Zappa's live album, Broadway the Hard Way. (thanks, Jeff - Kendall Park, NJ)
This song was featured in the Sigourney Weaver movie Copycat. A serial killer leaves the lyrics to this as a clue.