From his hit-making heyday with the Police to his Grammy Award–winning work as a solo performer, Sting’s long career has been defined by a willingness to experiment and a knack for unpredictability. Both elements have made him beloved by fans around the world and are evident in this definitive list of his greatest musical moments. These are the stories behind his most memorable songs.
WHY WE LOVE STING • With style, grace and endless curiosity, Sting has been making musical memories for decades
“ROXANNE” • Copeland recognized it as a surefire hit and immediately pitched it to a contact he had at A&M Records.
“DE DO DO DO, DE DA DA DA” • Critics dismissed the chorus as baby talk, but Sting was trying to make a larger point about the power of language.
“DON’T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME”
“EVERY LITTLE THING SHE DOES IS MAGIC” • The final version heard on the album is Summers and Copeland playing over Sting’s demo, a process that rankled the pair.
“SPIRITS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD” • The resentment came to a head during the recording of “Spirits in the Material World,” a song Sting had written on a Casio synthesizer.
“SYNCHRONICITY II” • The narrative tells of a man whose life is in such disarray that it essentially fuels the formation of a version of the Loch Ness monster.
“EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE” • Sting wrote the song while he was in the midst of a very public split from his wife… to whom he’d been married since 1976.
“KING OF PAIN” • Not only was it the final single released off of Synchronicity, but it was also the last time the Police released something new while still together.
“WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER” • The success of the song provided something of a microcosm of the schisms that existed in the group.
“LOVE IS THE SEVENTH WAVE” • The resulting album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, spawned a handful of hits on both sides of the Atlantic, including “Love Is the Seventh Wave.”
“FORTRESS AROUND YOUR HEART”
“IF YOU LOVE SOMEBODY SET THEM FREE” • “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” is one of the many entries in Sting’s catalog that is in conversation with another one of his own tunes.
“RUSSIANS” • When the time came to record the song, he desperately wanted to recruit a Russian orchestra and actually capture the string-rich piece on tape.
“WE’LL BE TOGETHER” • Sting whipped the whole thing up in a few minutes, and when juxtaposed with the more… melodically complex tracks in his catalog, you can sort of tell.
“BE STILL MY BEATING HEART”
“ALL THIS TIME” • The boat-centric imagery of “All This Time” is a nod to Sting’s childhood in the blue-collar town of Wallsend, England.
“FIELDS OF GOLD” • The release that yielded “Fields of Gold” was a top 10 album. But its most enduring impact… might actually be the song “Shape of My Heart.”
“IF I EVER LOSE MY FAITH IN YOU” • “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You” grabbed the attention of radio programmers, who made the track the most-played song on American radio in 1993.
“ALL FOR LOVE” • In the end, The Three Musketeers was a moderate box-office success, but “All for Love” was a smash.
“DESERT ROSE” • “Desert Rose” got a huge boost when it became the centerpiece of a Jaguar advertising campaign in early 2000.
Sting - The Stories Behind His Greatest Songs
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THE STORIES BEHIND THE MUSIC