Wrapped Around Your Finger

I wouldn’t begin to guess what Sting intended, but I will share how I interpret the song. I don’t think this is a song about lust at all. I think it is a song of forbidden love – true love. He loves her, and she loves him. But yes, she is married, and she will not leave her husband. He is young, and therefore he cannot provide the security her husband can. It seems to me he is aware that their love is true and rare, but she does not fully understand that yet.

You consider me the young apprentice Caught between the Scylla and Charibdes.

She thinks in his youth that his dreams of love are just fantasies, and he is caught between the torment of loving her and not being able to be with her.

Hypnotized by you if I should linger Staring at the ring around your finger.

The longer he is near her, the deeper he falls under her spell, the deeper in love he falls, but he she is spoken for, and he cannot forget that.

I have only come here seeking knowledge, Things they would not teach me of in college.

He has come to learn about love, to try and understand their connection, his emotions, her emotions, human nature. Things you can only learn through personal experience, not from a book.

I can see the destiny you sold turned into a shining band of gold.

The destiny she sold is the true love and happiness she might have known, if she had not married the wrong man.

I'll be wrapped around your finger. I'll be wrapped around your finger.

He is hers, he loves her, he bends to her will. The wedding band is a symbol of true love – he is wrapped around her finger symbolically because he loves her, he is her metaphorical “husband” because his heart belongs to her.

Mephistopheles is not your name, But I know what you're up to just the same.

In a passage from Marlowe's Faustus, Mephistopheles says: 'Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells In being deprived of everlasting bliss?'

Mephistopheles sold his soul to the devil for knowledge. She has sold her soul to the devil by turning away from true love for whatever benefit the marriage offers her, and she likely makes many excuses and justifications to him for why she stays, but he knows the truth, he knows what she has done, and that she will be tormented by it in the end.

I will listen hard to your tuition, And you will see it come to it's fruition. [chorus]

He will learn from her, how one turns away from true love, and he will find a way to break away from her and move on.

Devil and the deep blue sea behind me Vanish in the air you'll never find me.

Here I don’t think he’s talking to her – Devil and the deep blue sea is a similar reference to the Scylla and Charibdes - I think he’s addressing his own pain, saying he’ll put his heartbreak behind him, forget her, vanish and the pain will never find him again. Notice how this is part of the song that is emphasized, that is richly emotional – because this is part where he makes up his mind to break away.

I will turn your face to alabaster, When you find your servant is your master

Here he is addressing her, because once he is gone from her life, only in his absence will she truly understand how deeply she loves him, her face will go white (alabaster also means white) with the pain, her heart will turn to stone without love, and she will understand that he truly does rule her heart.

You'll be wrapped around my finger (x4)

Then she will know what he has felt, how she has loved him but never let herself truly know how much. Then she will be wrapped around his finger, his symbolic wife, he will be the true husband of her heart.