The Police’s debut single, released in May 1977, offers little hint of the hugely successful band they would become.

In January 1977 Gordon Sumner was playing jazz in Newcastle with his group Last Exit. In February he moved down to London and formed a new group called The Police.

In March I saw what seems to have been their second gig at the Roxy.

There were three of them – Sting on bass, Stewart Copeland on drums and Henri Padovani on guitar – and I remember they wore bright yellow boiler suits. I think they were yellow, anyway: they looked like car mechanics, or American prisoners.

They were the support group for Cherry Vanilla and their thrashing didn’t blow me away but in those days we went to anything punk.

Copeland and Sumner – Sting, as he was already known – returned to the stage to play in the backing band of the headliner Cherry Vanilla.

This was The Police’s first single, written by Copeland and recorded before they had even played a gig together.

Sting said later: “This was one of the first songs Stewart played me. What they [the songs] lacked in sophistication they made up for in energy. I just went along with them and sang them as hard as I could. No, it wasn’t false punk. I mean what’s a real punk? Our first record was entirely a tribute to Stewart’s energy and focus. The band wouldn’t have happened without him.”

Fall Out remains the only Police recording to feature Padovani, a Frenchman from Corsica who went on to join Wayne County & The Electric Chairs, though he was so nervous in the studio that he only played the solo, with Copeland playing the main guitar riff.

Copeland said later: “It was a heartfelt lyric, all about a personal disinclination to follow the styles of my peers. It was the first song that we rehearsed as The Police and also our first recording.

“We recorded it in a tiny studio and it was one of the rare instances in which I got to play the guitar. On this track and on (B-side) Nothing Achieving I played the main guitar tracks and Henri Padovani did the solo in the middle.”

Released on Illegal Records – owned by Copeland’s brother Miles – it wasn’t a hit but Copeland recalls: “It sold purely on the strength of the cover, because of the fashion at the time. Punk was in and it was one of the first punk records – and there weren’t very many to choose from.

“The average punk had every punk record that was available and when the next one came out which was the Police record, he bought that, too. But still I think it was a good record, so it did more than the average punk single.”