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When I was small, about eight to ten years old, my favorite pastime was playing the drums. I would gather all my mother's aluminum pots and lids on the floor, two wooden spoons as drumsticks, 45 rpm of "Roxanne" on the turntable, Copeland as my teacher. For me, Sting was an accessory, I didn't even know his nickname; he was just someone who sang in the drummer's band of the Police.
In '85, when there was no trace left of the Police, while watching Dj Television, I stumbled upon this guy with leggings, black glasses, a guitar slung over his shoulder, four or five black musicians playing around him, the name Sting, singing "If you love somebody". That little voice reminded me of something, but I immediately categorized him as just another fool among the many Duran Duran, Whitney Houston, and various other singers.
Until one day I discovered from Linus that this ridiculous guy was none other than the one who sunk my favorite band and thus took away Copeland's job. Damn it, and this bastard still has the nerve to show his face?
My resentment towards "him" grew exponentially with his success. Until one day, around 16 years old, I decided to give him a chance by purchasing his first album and the live album. With utmost skepticism, I played the latter, since the dream of the blue turtles (what the hell of a title) was known to me indirectly, the Russians, who, if they're like us, shouldn't bomb us, love is the seventh wave and all the rest, with that touch of jazz underneath that annoyed me infinitely and that drummer, Hakim I think, described by Sting himself as one of the best around. Damn, I thought, then Copeland is dead, because only if he's dead could you say such a heavy nonsense and think you can get away with it. How, damn it, your vile songs without Copeland's drumming wouldn't have been the same, did you get that, you scoundrel? Copeland taught you to insert bass notes in Outlandos songs to make them "reggae," you didn't understand a damn thing. The "Police style" of "Reggatta," inimitable even by the Police themselves, is Copeland-Summers. The dregs of Zenyatta are all yours. Just to put you back in your place, those two would have made even the awful songs of the Pooh immortal. No doubts about it.
Let's go back to the album, or rather no, now I've got the black bile again. Useless album, if you want to listen to Police songs live, buy the Police live albums (besides, his habit of distorting them live has always pissed me off, there's not a "Message in a bottle" or a "Truth hits everybody" sung the same as the original, he enjoys twisting them and you, having paid good money, have to applaud him); the others, taken from the blue turtles, are irredeemably outdated, old and rhetorical they were then, old and rhetorical they've remained. "Through the barricades" is more current.
Seriously, raise your hand if you still listen to "Russians", "Consider me gone", "Fortress around your heart" without feeling at least discomfort and many, many shivers. Of disgust. If you're in the car and they play "Love is the 7th wave" on the radio, turn it off immediately, change the station, pull over, falling asleep is the least that could happen to you.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Bring On the Night / When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around (11:40)
03 Low Life (04:03)
The fatal fascination for the seedy part of town
You walk down the street and your head spins round and round
Don't be seen alone without your friends at night
Take a gun or a knife to the low life
You don't have to be born into this society
You pay for love but the hate comes free
So bring enough money for the rest of your life
Don't bring your wife to the low life
Bringing us there to the degredation
Always keep your back to the wall
No rewards for your infatuation
Low life
No life at all
Yeah, low life, low life
In here to long to be afraid anymore
You can't reach the bed so you sleep on the floor
You get so stoned you think you could fly
But you won't get high on the low life
Low life, low life
Low life, low life
Low life, low life
Low life, low life
04 We Work the Black Seam (06:55)
This place has changed for good
Your economic theory said it would
It's hard for us to understand
We can't give up our jobs the way we should
Our blood has stained the coal
We tunnelled inside the nation's soul
We matter more than pounds and pence
Your economic theory makes no sense
One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
But deadly for twelve thousand years is
carbon fourteen
We work the black seam together
The seam lies underground
Three million years of pressure packed it down
We walk through ancient forest lands
And light a thousand cities with our hands
Your dark satanic mills
Have made redundant all our mining skills
You can't exchange a six inch band
For all the poison streams in Cumberland
One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
But deadly for twelve thousand years is
carbon fourteen
We work the black seam together
Our concious lives run deep
You cling onto your mountain while we sleep
This way of life is part of me
There is no price so only let me be
And should the children weep
The turning world will sing their souls to sleep
When you have sunk without a trace
The universe will suck me into place
One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
But deadly for twelve thousand years is
carbon fourteen
We work the black seam together
05 Driven to Tears (06:58)
How can you say that you're not responsible?
What does it have to do with me?
What is my reaction, what should it be?
Confronted by this latest atrocity
Driven to tears
Hide my face in my hands, shame wells in my throat
My comfortable existance is reduced to a shallow meaningless party
Seems that when some innocent die
All we can offer them is a page in a some magazine
Too many cameras and not enough food
'Cos this is what we've seen
Driven to tears
Protest is futile, nothing seems to get through
What's to become of our world, who knows what to do
Driven to tears
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Other reviews
By claudio carpentieri
A perfect collage of tracks where... the remarkable talent of the musicians allows each to shine without limits.
To be listened to without prejudice... to be owned without a doubt!
