When The Angels Fall

I have two approaches to this song:

1) It could be about a person (maybe Sting himself) turning his back on religion because he doesn't believe in it anymore. The angels he believed in (when he was a child) fall and the churches break down, meaning they are not important to him any longer. ("You can't control us anymore")

2) My second idea is that it's not about a specific person but about our society in general turning its back on religion and that Sting is actually criticising this.

In our generation, the angels are not important to us (although they still watch us and keep us safe). People don't believe in God anymore or at least they don't think he has enough power to influence their lives: "Your hands are empty [...] You can't control us"

People are more interested in satisfying their individual (material) needs and they only have faith in themselves. The emphasis is on the individual. That's how the lines "These are my feet, These are my hands, These are my children, And this is my demand" could be interpreted.

Either way, it's a very sad song. I wish he had chosen something a little less depressing to end the album.

Given how the entire album is a dialogue with his father (culminating for me story-wise with "The Wild WIld Sea") I would guess this to be a kind of goodbye, both bitter and reconciling. The way "You can't control us" is delivered, as the final high point before the song slowly starts to fade in intensity to me implies how, at least in death, certain things are final, and life without a (too?) strong father figure moves on.

My favorite Sting track of them all.

A million suns at midnight could refer to exploding bombs—dropped by fallen angels. Certainly if angels exist—and I believe they do—they are not merely the goody-two-shoes guardians that shepherd little children across busy highways. Angels are as multi-faceted as we are.

I don’t really ever want to see … like I could still see after that …a million suns at midnight either but this could happen. We have the intelligence to create stunning weapons. Those who can are not particularly cognizant of how they could be used or they wouldn’t create them and in life, we do have people waking up every morning, pulsating with tremendous power, thinking things like … I want it all … I think my way is better… I want to hurt you … I don’t like your looks … I just don’t like you and I want you out of here … And these people make giant strides, annihilating thousands, millions … without taking their thoughts and actions to logical conclusion. Would you really be happy if you oinked down most of the world?

In Iran, it’s popular to chant hatred every day—presumably in my mind so they cultivate hate instead of love, suggesting as humans we do not always possess the common sense we imagine we do. So let’s say the magic wand is waved and the chanting works! Tomorrow there is just Iran and everyone else disappears. Following the celebration, jovial Persians set out to re-populate the earth “our way”. If they succeed, there will be no “our way” because although the intent might exist, there would be no diversity to define what “our way” is. Chances are, they would not have the power to control the situation because life rarely listens to our demands simply because they make sense only to us and we haven’t thought them through. Do they stop the custom of chanting hatred daily? Old habits die hard. So they bleed across the planet and the more distant they move from what was originally Iran, the freer they are with their ideas until one day, the big game starts all over and once again the naysayers are wishing the dissenters into the cornfield ala Twilight Zone’s Billy.
I’ve seen cosmic humor. I get nervous because I know that with enough rope we could easily hang ourselves and I can never really decide if seeing a million suns at midnight is someone’s wish and they can wish better than I can. Such is life … always keeps us guessing, I guess …

Paraphrased poetry

Song—full of agony—full of sighs. Move weeping now and watch that no one sees you as you go. Giddap!—you hear him, in his clear voice say. My horrid prison rings with my moan—my sighs … Is this the pledge you gave to me?

My lovely beauty, though prey of cruel war Cries not for hurt, but weeps to assuage the grief of her lost past liberty. In order to capture their darlings, the lovers come armed. Surrender, you beautiful things—don’t carry on war. But who is flying this way? Oh—love’s little angel, it is. Love—it is! Laughing—who comes to those who have fallen in love. She: Keep me now company. I see folk pestilent—that I bear no torment. Something or the other drives them from me here.

IMO there's nothing depressing about casting off the primitive shackles of religion. i find it a very hopeful and empowering end to the album.

Sting is singing about mankind being the fallen angels..."Something haunts us all". The angels that have not fallen watch over mankind. "Looking for their lost homes"...mankind looking for a return to heaven. Mankind broke free from God "You can't control us anymore" and that is the reason for the fall.

Ok, my turn for an interpretation! Let's go!

"underneath a bridge of stars": under the Milky Way, which does look somehow like a bridge made of stars... so poetic!

"But perhaps the dream is dreaming us": when we go asleep, we dream, and thus we believe we're dreaming. And when we're awake, we believe this world to be "the one and only reality". But, in many cultures and spiritual currents, our daylife if a dream. Aboriginals believe life on earth is a dream. Scientist now consider our reality to be a holographic projection of an observer (a conscience). So, yeah, perhaps the dream is dreamng us... As long as we don't question things, we're trapped in whatever this world made us believe. When we dared to question things, we realize that, yes, the world we're in is a dream, and that most of things are being prepared before it appears in our world. This world is a "consequence" of something generated prior to its materialization. We don't know the true nature of our reality... but it's nice to think of it as a dream... dreaming us...

"When the angels fall": who are those angles? The good ones? Coming down to get us / save us? Or are they falling like Lucifer and his crew? (the bad angels?) I'd rather think he's reffering to the good angels. The bad one is mentioned at the end... with the "YOU can't control us"...

"Shadows on the wall, In the thunder's call, Something haunts us all": well I wonder what... not clear for me here. But sure, we're all haunted with negative energies... our own shadows too... in some esoteric currents, it's believed that negative energies are stored in shadow areas in a house, ceiling, cave, behind a furniture, on walls... That's why it's important to clean your house, bring the light in it, burn incense... Brushing your teeth is good, but cleaning "energetically" your house is better. It'll avoid having "something" haunting you!

"Take your father's cross, Gently from the wall": Referring to Jesus's cross hanged in many homes. The crucified Christ on a cross is a satanic symbol for those who still don't know. So Sting is gently telling us to take it off, and I see this as a good suggestion! Why represent our saviour dead rather than full of life and strength? Think about it. Be careful with the religious symbols you were told to be "sacred", many are twisted to become bad symbols, and many people don't see anything in that, because they don't know, and don't question things...

"A shadow still remaining, See the churches fall In mighty arcs of sound, And all that they're containing": it is predicted the fall of religions, symbolized by churches... Notre Dame de Paris burned back in 2019... A huge Mosquee burned in Asia not so long ago... Long ago Tibet was invaded by China, not good for the tibetanc, but bouddhism needed to be cleaned from bad energies, and the good news, is that bouddism has spread world wide in western countries... So those are "religious structures" which are being destroyed... But it's not a bad thing, because most, if not all religions are compromised with bad energies, demons etc... So it's logical them must fall sometimes, and we're witnessing that! Religions won't totally dissapear, because many people rely on them, and they need those spiritual structures, but once purified and put back on the good tracks, it'll be okay. Hey Sting, you know a couple "secret" knowledge here...

"Yet all the ragged souls, Of all the ragged men, Looking for their lost homes Shuffle to the ruins, From the levelled plain, To search among the tombstones": Reffering to the people who suffer from these hard days, end of the times, where humanity is at its worst, people loose their homes, where wars take lives, where horror and sufferance is everywhere... turn on the TV and you'll see it's happening now...

"These are my feet, These are my hands, These are my children": the narrator (Sting) as a man is just saying with humility all he has is his body (hands, feet), and his children. He didn't say "here is my Ferrari, here is my chihuahua, here is my Rolex...".

And this is my demand, Bring down the angels": All he's asking for is help, divine help, because, the world he's in is such a destructive one, full of violence, full of perverted religions, nothing sacred, only "ragged souls"... Only sorrow... it's as if earth became a hell, so he's asking for angels to come get him out of there... all of us.

"Cast them from my sight, I never want to see, A million suns at midnight": Strange how he asks for angels to come, but at the same time he dosen't want to see them all at once! Why? He tells us, because they will shine too much, like "millions suns", and he could go blind... when you live on a dark world, you're not used to divine light. So yeah, please, send us the angels, but also, please go gently, because the light is going to be so bright, too bright to bear... I don't think he's saying something more tortured than this.

"Your hands are empty, The streets are empty You can't control us, You can't control us anymore ": who is the "you" here??? Well, maybe the "you" is the "ennemy", the invisible ennemy he's talking to... Something like the devil, Lucifer (who's a fallen angel, the one who made this world become a hell). So maybe Sting is calling for angels to save him, and then telling to the one and only Lucifer that he owns nothing from this world, that why he says "your hands are empty". "Your streets are empty" reffers to the fact that at the end of the song, the (good) angels just took everyone out, like a "rapture"... and the devil is left with no one on earth to F**K with.

"You can't control us anymore": that same "you" was also the one "controlling" him/Sting/us... and the fact that angels came to "save us", they freed us from the claws of the evil one (the "You" in the song)... ` "...Anymore", meaning that all the time before that "event", the evil one was in "control". In the Bible (Sting probably read part of the Bible), it is said that the Devil/Lucifer owns nothing on this earth. He was just allowed to be the master for a limited time, and in the end of the times, he's reign would be over, and everything with it.

So, in the end, I find this song really uplifting... It may have a deeper meaning, or more hidden meanings... But with my background, I kinda interpreted it this way... What do you think??

It's not a religious song, it's more spiritual. I know Sting is into spirituality, he's vegan, does yoga, breathing excercises... So he knows a lot of esoteric stuff... And if you don't believe me, just listen to the music, how magical it sounds to your ears... the music got me first, the lyrics after. Sting songs have deep meanings...

Enjoy!