| Sting – Shape Of My Heart Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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The playing card deck actually developed from the Tarot, so there is something to the idea of reading fate in playing cards. Sting dabbles in that stuff, like reading tea leaves. The idea of the song is in two parts. First, the dealer reads his own fate in the cards while dealing a game for others. Second, the dealer's poker face extends to the rest of his life, hiding secrets from everyone, even those who think they're close to the truth about him. Amazing that someone can write a character that cool and inscrutable into a song with only two verses, a middle eight, and a chorus. Sting's guitarist, Dominic Miller, shares writing credit on this song, for composing the main guitar riff. One of the few Sting songs that he didn't originate musically. |
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| Peter Gabriel – Solsbury Hill Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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red hots is right. Solsbury is one of those history-rich parts of Britain that is revered by the pagan-types. Yes, it's about Gabriel leaving Genesis. It's applicable to Jesus as well. Or maybe it's about Siddhartha leaving his worthless possessions behind and finding enlightenment. I think the specific reference to Solsbury Hill prevents it from being a literal retelling of Jesus' or Buddha's story, but the messianic imagery is there to lend some weight to the story. No matter what, it's about leaving what you know for something you don't know, but that you feel is the right thing to do. The mark of a great songwriter (or author or filmmaker...) is the ability to create something like this: Filled with specifics and a solid story, but with a universality that makes you feel like it's about YOU and the ones you admire and love. |
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| Red House Painters – Mistress Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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The lyrics don't seem that far off, O Earl of Kent. Like most of the old songs, this one is about crushing, near-suicidal depression. Yay! Gregisgreg is right. It's more about his troubles than about her. He feels abused and pursued by the world, and all she can think to do is give him paltry presents. What he wants is a girl who feels as depressed as him. Then they'd be able to communicate, and he would be happy...or rather miserable, but with company. |
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| Sting – The Lazarus Heart Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This started as a dream Sting had in the year before his mother died, when she was very ill. The act of bearing a child is the same as a mother sacrificing her own life for the life of a child. Sometimes it's even literally true. At the least, the life she had before the child is gone. But in sacrificing, she provides life to another human. Death and regeneration, like Lazarus rising from the dead in the New Testament. The mother's wounding of the son teaches the him that change is almost always painful, but the wounds are necessary to die as one person and live as a newer, more complete person. There is one final change that we all face--death. The best shield to the pain of death is in our loved ones and in our strength of character. Hell of a first song to put on an album. |
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| Sting – Every Breath You Take Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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It's a Police song, not just a Sting song. The 'every cake you bake, every leg you break' bit is at the end of "Love Is the Seventh Wave." The song really is about a stalker. It's about obsession, surveillance, and possessiveness. "Every step you take, I'll be watching you." "Every night you stay [i.e., stay with someone else] I'll be watching you." The relationship between the singer and the subject is over, but the singer refuses to let go. Sting said it was a metaphor for government surveillance. There is nothing cuddly about this song at all. Sting even said he was creeped out at the thought of people having this played at their wedding. Creeped out all the way to the bank, I guess. |
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| Sting – It's Probably Me Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Sting and Eric Clapton (who really are friends) wrote this song together for Lethal Weapon 3. Sting said he liked the idea of writing a song about buddies for a change instead of a romantic song. He's since done it again in "My Funny Friend and Me." | |
| Sting – Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| On the VH1 show Storytellers, Sting said this song was written in honor of a good friend of his who died from AIDS. | |
| Sting – Tomorrow We'll See Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| This song was written either for or about a documentary on teenage transvestite prostitutes in Brazil. The film is called "The Boys From Brazil," and was produced by Sting's wife Trudie Styler. | |
| Sting – Moon Over Bourbon Street Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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It is based on "Interview With the Vampire." He's said it in interviews, and there is a liner note to that effect on the back of the Dream of the Blue Turtles album. On the "All This Time" CD-ROM, he mentions he heard that Lestat was based partially on him. But, he says, he only ever found Louis interesting, a vampire who feels guilty about killing. "Sister Moon" also features him howling at the end. Neither are really about werewolves. |
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| Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Sting once pointed out that while "Fortress Around Your Heart" has a repeated reference to a bridge, the song itself has no bridge. The original black and white video had a color ending that showed Sting gluing dollar bills onto the side of a filing cabinet. It's not on the videos DVD, but it's on the old VHS collection. |
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| Sting – Desert Rose Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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The rai flavor of the music ties in directly with the desert imagery and Middle Eastern references. A man dying of thirst in the desert, searching for an oasis, symbolizes the desire for the unattainable perfect woman. Even when he thinks he has her, the ideal disappears like a mirage, but the desire is still there. She dances the Dance of the Seven Veils, the original "forbidden dance" of seduction, in which the dancer strips off seven veils to reveal her face. The veils are metaphorically connected to the petals of the rose, with the ensuing Georgia O'Keefe female imagery. In the last verse, the same longing describes the human romantic condition in general. Referencing the Fall of Man from the Garden of Eden, he says that the patterns of desire and seduction have been hardwired into us since ancient times. And Eden was historically assumed to be in northern Africa somewhere. One translation I found of the Arabic that Cheb Mami sings: It has been a long time, And I am looking for myself and my loved one And I am looking for myself and my loved one And I am looking for myself and my loved one My life is for you, And no one other than you. In the demo version of the song, Sting sings jibberish for the English lyrics. |
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| Sting – Englishman In New York Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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The song is about all of the above. It's also specifically about the late author Quentin Crisp, an openly gay Englishman who wrote a book called The Naked Civil Servant. He and Sting were friends, and Sting wrote a song of admiration for him. Crisp appears in the video. And yeah, that drum machine bit sucks. Sting said it was to give the impression of someone with a loud boombox walking through the middle of the song. Nice try. |
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| The Decemberists – Song for Myla Goldberg Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Myla Goldberg is a young New York author who wrote the novella "Bee Season," about grade school spelling bees. Eliza is the main character. I've never read the book, but I think the other names are characters in there as well. Playing with the funny phrases makes you pay attention to the words themselves, which is appropriate for a song (sort of) about spelling bees. Also, they're catchy things to put in a really catchy song. Bee Season "comes around" every year, i.e., the annual spelling bee. |
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| The Decemberists – The Bachelor and the Bride Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I think the wrinkle in the water is a burial at sea, pumkinhed put it, of a baby girl. This is an incredibly violent song, as some Decemberists songs are. Boxing someone's ears means beating the hell out of them. The basic plot, as near as I can tell, is of a woman and her abusive husband, living out in the sticks somewhere. She is unable to bear children, and he is continually punishing her for it. The medallion is either the memory of her lost daughter, or the secret of some other lover. Assuming Colin Meloy based this on some book...he's a real lit geek. But God, what a great song. |
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| Sting – Fields of Gold Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Ditto, theladysopal. The original version is outstanding, though Eva Cassidy did a fine cover. And yes, it's about his own backyard. It was written around the time he bought his castle, and shortly after he married Trudie. Or maybe it's just about beer. |
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| Sting – La Belle Dame Sans Regrets Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Well, bugmenot is closer than they think to the actual meaning. The song is really about France, but not specifically about their fine dairy products. It's about their above-ground nuclear testing. France is the beautiful woman with whom the singer is dancing. She breaks his heart because while she is beautiful, she says and does horrible things seemingly just to anger him. I'm not making this up, I read it in an interview when the album came out. |
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