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Rating: We were quite young, and like all young people, we were extremists. The usual story of being incendiaries at twenty and firefighters at forty. Rhetorical, boring, and quite true... Today I look at this operation with disenchanted, amused, and admiring eyes. Back then, of course, I got pissed off. And with me, those who played with me. All raised on bread and Police, Prince, and Boss, we firmly believed that some things should not, nor could they, be touched. And we had followed the evolution of the Police practically on our knees, getting excited every time, and each time more and more.
Those five records, none like the other, but all with that splendid common denominator of the most original “light” instrumental trio in history. New sounds, strongly contaminated but truly unlike anything else. And, after the thrill of one of the most beautiful ballads ever (“Every breath you take”, of course), included in a very refined album, at times not easy at all, and apparently the result of a path, we could not accept a step forward, or perhaps better "elsewhere", which implied the tragic abandonment of the other two Policemen. And there was no jazz excuse that held. We were pissed off. And we were wrong. We were wrong to look for Summers' guitar where the guitar could not and should not be, and the little there was played by Sting himself, the six-string companion good for singing but nothing more. And we couldn't expect Copeland's snare where Hakim's beat completely differently. Then, apparently, too many pianos, too many keyboards, too much sax. For Christ's sake... where had our Police gone? Sting, though also young then (we age together...: I’ll reveal this horrible secret to you), had understood more than we had. He understood that things are born, develop, and end. And this applies even to the bands that made your fortune. It's up to you to understand that the truly great is the one who changes direction (Battisti, Faber, Bowie), while the miserable one keeps beating, always worse, the same worn-out and melted asphalt. And maybe even the Sting, getting older, will beat the solo path always a bit worse to eventually end up singing medieval songs and returning with the Policemen... But back then there was an urgency, the emergency to say something new. To really turn the page.
Because in the dream of the blue turtles only the voice, although continuously and evidently maturing, was the same as before: everything else was different. And the thing would become all the more evident in the album tour, splendidly documented by the live “Bring On The Night”. And even if it's certainly not the first time in history that the grounds and languages of jazz are mixed with songwriter music, rock, or more generally so-called “light” music, we can say without fear of being wrong that it's the first time languages mix like this. The Police (hence Sting until then) had inaugurated a “post-punk” language of “white reggae” to find still partial and mocked definitions, actually inaugurating a new and unforgettable page in the history of music not only beyond the Channel. Sting translates his language, his voice, giving an apparent tribute to reggae next to a self-covered policing, paying more than a total act of love to the world of jazz, touching social themes even citing Procofiev. In short: creating an album both light and intellectual. Easy and difficult. Of immediate enjoyment as well as long chewed. Miracles, whatever you say, that could still happen only in the much-maligned eighties, years of Gazebo and Righeira, but also of “Don Giovanni” and “Creuza de mä”. Years that saw greats like Bowie, Morrison, Stones, Pink Floyd, etc., survive quite well, but commercially saw the birth of U2, Simple Minds, Prince, Talking Heads, Dire Straits, and many others. Quality commercialism, a canon now lost. In Italy Vasco, Pino Daniele, Bennato, De Gregori, Faber, Secchioni, Guccini. New people alongside who was there before but still knew how to say great things. Other times, other orgasms, the Squallor would say. Other greats, gone, since then.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 If You Love Somebody Set Them Free (04:16)
Free, free, set them free
Free, free, set them free
Free, free, set them free
If you need somebody
Call my name
If you want someone
You can do the same
If you want to keep something precious
You got to lock it up and throw away the key
If you want to hold onto your possession
Don't even think about me
If you love somebody
If you love someone
If you love somebody
If you love someone, set them free
Set them free
Set them free
Set them free
If it's a mirror you want
Just look into my eyes
Or a whipping boy
Someone to despise
Or a prisoner in the dark
Tied up in chains you just can't see
Or a beast in a gilded cage
That's all some people ever want to be
If you love somebody
If you love someone
If you love somebody
If you love someone, set them free
Set them free
Set them free
Set them free
You can't control an independent heart
Can't tear the one you love apart
Forever conditioned to believe that we can't live
We can't live here and be happy with less
So many riches
So many souls
With everything we see that we want to possess
If you need somebody
Call my name
If you want someone
You can do the same
If you want to keep something precious
You got to lock it up and throw away the key
You want to hold onto your possession
Don't even think about me
If you love somebody
If you love someone
If you love somebody
If you love someone, set them free
Set them free
Set them free
Set them free
Set them free
03 Russians (03:58)
In Europe and America
There's a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets
Mister Kruschev said, "We will bury you"
I don't subscribe to this point of view
It'd be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too
How can I save my little boy
From Oppenheimer's deadly toy?
There is no monopoly of common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too
There is no historical precedent
To put the words in the mouth of the president?
There's no such thing as a winnable war,
It's a lie we don't believe anymore
Mister Reagan says; "We will protect you"
I don't subscribe to this point of view
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
What might save us, me and you,
Is if the Russians love their children too
04 Children's Crusade (05:01)
Young men, soldiers, nineteen fourteen
Marching through countries they'd never seen
Virgins with rifles, a game of charades
All for a children's crusade
Pawns in the game are not victims of chance
Strewn on the fields of Belgium and France
Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
The children of England would never be slaves
They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained the blood of a whole generation
Corpulent generals safe behind lines
History's lessons drowned in red wine
Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
All for a children's crusade
The children of England would never be slaves
They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained the blood of a whole generation
Midnight in Soho nineteen eighty four
Fixing in doorways, opium slaves
Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
All for a children's crusade
06 We Work the Black Seam (05:42)
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
09 Moon Over Bourbon Street (04:01)
There's a moon over Bourbon Street tonight
I see faces as they pass beneath the pale lamplight
I've no choice but to follow that call
The bright lights, the people, and the moon and all
I pray everyday to be strong
For I know what I do must be wrong
Oh you'll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While there's a moon over Bourbon Street
It was many years ago that I became what I am
I was trapped in this life like an innocent lamb
Now I can never show my face at noon
And you'll only see me walking by the light of the moon
The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast
I've the face of a sinner but the hands of a priest
Oh you'll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While there's a moon over Bourbon Street
She walks everyday through the streets of New Orleans
She's innocent and young from a family of means
I have stood many times outside her window at night
To struggle with my instinct in the pale moonlight
How could I be this way when I pray to God above
I must love what I destroy and destroy the thing I love
Oh you'll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While there's a moon over Bourbon Street
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Other reviews
By Grasshopper
Sting has continuously sought a compromise between his noble passions and the taste of the broadest possible audience.
This sycophantic record, made to please everyone, is still very enjoyable to listen to after 20 years.
By claudio carpentieri
The album can be seen as a successful combination of styles that draws from the past but is oriented towards the future in an attempt to merge the two musical cultures at its core: white and black.
Sting’s unstoppable artistic pursuit has always led him to investigate new things, consistently confirming the validity of his musical intuition.
