Jeremiah Blues (Part 1) uses the guise of the Biblical cock Robin to churn some insouciant funk. Sting has long outed his love of Bertolt Brecht's caustic indictments against the status quo, and Jeremiah - a wise-assed lampoon - is a character study, providing him with a chance to invert the earnestness in 'When the World Is Running Down'. The global "big clock is ticking" here, just like in the Police tune, but Sting, his puss adorned with a gleeful smirk at the end of the world's mayhem, loves it to death.
[Sting]: "It's tongue in cheek, kind of an absurdist song really," he grins, "I've been called a Jeremiah with this whole ecology thing, so I decided to take a swipe at that stance, a side-long look at it. It's ambiguousness is nice; I didn't want to write songs about save the trees or don't kill the Lemmings. That's not art, it's propaganda."
Sting would rather feed his listeners ideas that they might not taste until later. Like Brecht? He laughs. "Well, there's a lot to learn from his work - I studied him in school and have generally learned a lot from that guy. But there's a lot of bullshit in his stuff, too. Information in songs is important obviously, but it shouldn't be perceived as boring lessons. Jeremiah has got a good groove going for it."
Jeremiah Blues (Part 1) uses the guise of the Biblical cock Robin to churn some insouciant funk. Sting has long outed his love of Bertolt Brecht's caustic indictments against the status quo, and Jeremiah - a wise-assed lampoon - is a character study, providing him with a chance to invert the earnestness in 'When the World Is Running Down'. The global "big clock is ticking" here, just like in the Police tune, but Sting, his puss adorned with a gleeful smirk at the end of the world's mayhem, loves it to death.
[Sting]: "It's tongue in cheek, kind of an absurdist song really," he grins, "I've been called a Jeremiah with this whole ecology thing, so I decided to take a swipe at that stance, a side-long look at it. It's ambiguousness is nice; I didn't want to write songs about save the trees or don't kill the Lemmings. That's not art, it's propaganda."
Sting would rather feed his listeners ideas that they might not taste until later. Like Brecht? He laughs. "Well, there's a lot to learn from his work - I studied him in school and have generally learned a lot from that guy. But there's a lot of bullshit in his stuff, too. Information in songs is important obviously, but it shouldn't be perceived as boring lessons. Jeremiah has got a good groove going for it."