Songfacts®:

• Released as a UK single on May 1, 1977, "Fall Out" was the first single by The Police, who at the time were the trio of bass player Sting, drummer Stewart Copeland, and guitarist Henri Padovani. In August that year, Padovani left, replaced by Andy Summers, who was on board for their first album in 1978. The Sting/Copeland/Summers lineup stayed in tact for the duration of the band.
• Stewart Copeland wrote this song, including the lyrics. It's a rebellious rocker with a punk sensibility, which was their chosen genre. Later on, The Police became more melodic with a reggae influence. Sting ended up writing the lion's share of their hits.
• This song was left off the group's first album but appears on a number of compilations, including their 1993 boxed set Message In A Box. In the liner notes to that set, Copeland wrote: "In the It was a heartfelt lyric, all about a personal disinclination to follow the styles of my peers."
  
  Copeland says that his brother Ian helped with the lyric.
• This was the first song the group rehearsed and recorded. They borrowed £400 pounds to pay for the recording and issued it on Illegal Records, a label set up by Stewart Copeland's bother Miles for the sole purpose of issuing the track. "Fall Out" sold well, finding an audience in the UK punk scene, and The Police signed with A&M Recordes. In 1979 Miles Copeland started a new label, I.R.S. Records, which was an imprint of A&M. I.R.S. signed some of the biggest acts of the '80s, including The Go-Go's, the Bangles and R.E.M.
• Sting called this and the other Police songs of this time a "tribute to Stewart's energy and focus" in the Message In A Box liner notes, adding, "What they lacked in sophistication they made up for in energy. I just went along with them and sang them as hard as I could."