Background
The song deals with the mixed feelings of lust, fear and guilt that a female student has for a school teacher and vice versa, and inappropriateness leading to confrontation. The music and lyrics of the song were written by the lead singer of The Police, Sting, who had previously worked as an English teacher. In a 2001 interview for the concert DVD ...All This Time, Sting denied that the song is autobiographical. The line "Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov" alludes to Vladimir Nabokov's famous novel Lolita which covers somewhat similar issues.
"Don't Stand So Close to Me" appeared on The Police's album Zenyatta Mondatta (A&M), and became a hit 'No.1' UK single along with a corresponding music video. In the US, it reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at #10. In the UK, the track was confirmed by the end of 1980 to have been the biggest selling single of that year.
The B side, "Friends", was written by Andy Summers and is inspired by Stranger in a Strange Land, a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein.
Sting was asked to perform on Mark Knopfler's "Money for Nothing" as he was in Montserrat at the time, and reused the melody from "Don't Stand So Close to Me" in the counterpoint lyric 'I want my MTV'. It was only after this story was related to reporters during promotions for the Brothers in Arms album that lawyers for Sting became involved, and later copies of the album co-credit the song to Sting. The initial pressings list only Mark Knopfler. It is one of only two shared songwriting credits on any Dire Straits album.
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