SPIN: It's interesting that you're unconsciously using all this archetypal female imagery - gestation, pregnancy, seeds germinating - to describe this process. Obviously you're accessing more and more of that part of yourself. 'They Dance Alone', for instance, seems to be an acknowledgement of the non-aggressive power of the feminine aspect.
STING: Its power is that it's ostensibly a peaceful gesture. It's innocent in a way: Security forces can't arrest you for dancing, although I'm sure they'd like to. But this is such a powerful image, of women dancing with pictures of their loved ones pinned on their arms and clothes instead of going out there with Molotov cocktails, which only elicits another kind of violence. This is something that has to win - it's so powerful that it actually has to succeed. Whereas terrorism, no matter how justified by previous violence, will never work. I'll tell you an interesting story. When we first started to record with the Police, I wrote some hard-driving rock'n'roll songs, like 'All I Want Is to Be Next to You'. Andy and Stewart said that I shouldn't write a love song, that the future was in pseudopolitical songs, or whatever. So I said, 'Well, I've written this, why don't you try and write something else ?" So they both went home with the song's backing tracks and Andy came up with 'I'm Not Going to Take a Gun to You' and Stewart came up with something almost the same. Miserable.
SPIN: It's interesting that you're unconsciously using all this archetypal female imagery - gestation, pregnancy, seeds germinating - to describe this process. Obviously you're accessing more and more of that part of yourself. 'They Dance Alone', for instance, seems to be an acknowledgement of the non-aggressive power of the feminine aspect.
STING: Its power is that it's ostensibly a peaceful gesture. It's innocent in a way: Security forces can't arrest you for dancing, although I'm sure they'd like to. But this is such a powerful image, of women dancing with pictures of their loved ones pinned on their arms and clothes instead of going out there with Molotov cocktails, which only elicits another kind of violence. This is something that has to win - it's so powerful that it actually has to succeed. Whereas terrorism, no matter how justified by previous violence, will never work. I'll tell you an interesting story. When we first started to record with the Police, I wrote some hard-driving rock'n'roll songs, like 'All I Want Is to Be Next to You'. Andy and Stewart said that I shouldn't write a love song, that the future was in pseudopolitical songs, or whatever. So I said, 'Well, I've written this, why don't you try and write something else ?" So they both went home with the song's backing tracks and Andy came up with 'I'm Not Going to Take a Gun to You' and Stewart came up with something almost the same. Miserable.