Fields of Gold

It's about two young lovers, soulmates, it's also a very spiritual song. The man dies young, and many years later, as the woman nears her death, she goes back to the place where she was most happy in her life and remembers him. The title itself "Fields of Gold" means that their love was worth far more than gold, and walking in "fields of gold" means that they have something very special and glorious between them, their love is so deep that it transcends everything, including time, space, lives, etc. The first stanza is going back in memory and remembering that time when she was happy with him. It describes falling in love and how exciting that feeling was. There, they swear that their love will be forever. A line I love is "we'll forget the sun in his jealous sky..." I've always taken this to mean that their time in that life is limited, that he will die a young man, and she will have to live many years without him. Forgetting the sun in the jealous sky talks about that cycle of day and night that is comparable to life and death. They are forgetting for a while that their moments together are limited and that the life they have together will end rather soon. For that while, they are just enjoying their time together, living in the moment and not thinking about anything else. "Many years have passed..." she returns to that physical place where she was happy with him, but also she returns to the place in her mind. It has been a long time, so things have changed. She watches children (not her own, just children playing) near this place, and the sun is setting. Here again is the life/death cycle. As for the west wind, it's like a trigger for her memory, that feeling ignites her memories again, and they are bittersweet, she remembers the happiness she felt for him, but there is also the pain of losing him. I've always thought of the last stanza as a switch of perspective. Whereas till that point, he was basically speaking to her telling her she will remember him, now she is speaking to him. "You can tell the sun in his jealous sky when we walked in fields of gold", meaning that because he's already passed away, he now sees the bigger picture and can tell that time cannot touch their love, for it transcends everything.

This song to me means he is in love deeply with a girl, and as they make love in the golden fields the sun-a powerful literary device, is actually jealous of their perfect love. It's a nice song and I'm glad it's not a real downer.

No one has mentioned the Tantric aspect to this song...

I agree that it's generally a straightforward love song, but Sting has a "spiritual" (and specifically Tantric) disposition, which I think plays into this song, particularly with the puzzling line: "You'll forget the sun it it's jealous sky."

In some spiritual traditions, like Tantra, there's the concept of an ascendant and a descendant path. Ascendant is transcendent, heavenly, almost otherworldly; while descendant is worldly, manifest. (Both paths can be seen as legitimate, you can either try to transcend the world to find "God" or embrace everything of the world to find God.)

Now, he says "Forget the sun" because he's asking her to embrace this human love, here on this earth, symbolized by the worldly "fields of barley." And he's saying that they will have such profound Love that the fields of barley will actually become "Fields of Gold." (Which is also why the Sun is jealous, because the Sun will always be transcendent and thus will never be able to experience the sacredness of manifestation.)

Sting wrote this song whilst he was looking out into his garden and watching his children (the ones he has with Trudie Styler, I presume) playing. I think its about a man looking back on his life, at the mistakes, and the happiness, and feeling satisfied.

I adore this song. Eva Cassidy sang it very nicely, but at the end of the day, Sting wrote it, it will always be his. The way he sings it ... wow. It is the most amazing song he has ever written, even people who dont like other things he has done enjoy fields of gold. Its truely amazing.

this is one of the most beautiful songs i ever heard

I love this song. As time passes these common events in our lives, like ordinary Barley, sometimes become the ones we remember and cherish and find strength in. They become Gold- the color of the ripe barley harvest. There was sorrow but the enduring relationship overcame it. Children offer hope. They could be the couples. There was common stuff like betrayal but somehow they endured and time healed.

"Fields of Barley" means earth, and "Fields of gold" means heaven (Heaven on earth) Just watched the movie The Knowing with Nicolas Cage at the end of the movie there is the scene with the tree of life and two innocent children running through the fields of (gold)_ (barley) Stings words i feel were influenced from the teachings of the Kaballah. Linn

The most beautiful song ever written!!

The melody and lyrics are a poem and I could listen to his voice forever! As soon as the song begins, I can immediately picture the beautiful fields of gold and the important scenes in life that take place within those fields...

For me, Fields Of Gold is one of the best songs ever written. The music as well as the lyrics are very deep and full of emotion. I guess the song is about a relationship that broke up long ago (I think so because of the repeated phase “You’ll remember me...”) although it seemed to be so perfect, that even the sun was jealous of it. The change of perspectives is quite striking: the first, third, fifth and sixth verses as well as the bridge (“I never made promises lightly...”) are written in the perspective of the lyrical I (Sting himself — the person who had the relationship) in a kind of retrospective, it seems he wants his former girlfriend to remember the past relationship, too, because he lists some of the beautiful moments the couple had (going for a walk together — 1st verse; Sting’s confession, that he loves her — 2nd verse; lie together in fields of gold). Maybe he has still got some hope, that one day this relationship will get a second chance (?). As a contrast, the second and fourth verses are written from the view of a third person who seems to watch another couple’s meeting in the same place (“Fields of Barley”- verse 4). In verse 4 Sting even seems to describe the feelings of the other man (“Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth”). Perhaps Sting wants to express, that there are much more broken hearted people with the same destiny he had — first a perfect relationship, but later a disappointing experience (?) And, finally, I think the sunset in the 5th verse is a symbol of universal transience and the running children can be seen as a symbol of hope.

This song makes me also remember a quite similar experience of my own life. Once I performed Fields Of Gold on guitar at school together with a keyboarder I loved very much. Singing and making music with him was indescribably intense, but he didn’t love me, so all that’s left for me are these memories and the music.

The story is chronological. It is about courtship, marriage, and eventual death. The two people in the song meet, court, fall in love (at this point, he reveals that he has never really made such a strong promise/commitment to someone) but feels he is ready to now. "See the children run," their offspring and the "jealous sky" refer to the Heavens. Even Heaven is jealous of their love/relationship. The esteemed sun is jealous. Eventually, he dies and tells his love that they will always remember their love specifically, when she thinks of him, he wants to be personified as such... walking in fields of gold (barley).