Over the course of the touring schedule to promote the album, the band played a sold out show at Shea Stadium in New York, a moment that Sting later described as an Everest moment for the band, and something that made him think about what the future now held. Near the end of the concert, Sting announced: "We'd like to thank the Beatles for lending us their stadium." Drummer Stewart Copeland later reflected, "Playing Shea Stadium was big because, even though I'm a Yank, The Police is an English band and I'm a Londoner – an American Londoner – so it felt like conquering America." The tour ended in Melbourne on 4 March 1984 at the Melbourne Showgrounds, and the band could rightly claim to be the biggest in the world.
At the height of this popularity and fame, the band then went on hiatus, as Sting announced that he wanted to pursue a solo album as a way of winding down, and to see just where his own musical instincts wanted to take him. The initial writing sessions for the album were said to have been synth driven with a funk vibe about the tracks, something that would have been a complete departure from the music produced by The Police, which suited the fact that he wanted to do a solo project to explore these roads. Eventually as the writing sessions progressed he abandoned this direction, and instead pulled back to a far more jazz-infused style, still a stretch from what he had been writing and performing before this album. And looking back over the way that The Police had changed their sound from album to album, infusing new sounds into their songs and making them a part of the evolving sound of the band, one can see that Sting had an ability to move with the times and utilise these changes to his music as a whole. Even with that said, I’m not sure anyone was truly prepared for what awaited them with the release of his debut studio album, “The Dream of the Blue Turtles”.
How best to approach a review of Sting’s first solo project? A song by song appraisal perhaps doesn’t quite seem appropriate for an album that has so much depth and variety about it, along with the aforementioned changes to the script. And there is a change throughout the track list on the album that moves with the mood that Sting was obviously looking for when it came to his solo outfit.
The opening track “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” was the also the opening single to the album, released a few weeks before the album made the shelves. It was the song that was to set in place the tone of the album for the fans prior to them hearing it. And it immediately showcases a different style for Sting than he had with his band. But – it isn’t so different that it would scare off any fans. Yes there is more a of jazz swing about the track, it has sax and backing singers in the chorus lending a hand, and it is less moody or dark than had been some of the more recent singles from his other band. Overall it lends itself to being the perfect song to act as the bridge between The Police, and drawing that fan base into accepting his solo album. Or, at the very least, buying it to find out for themselves. This is followed by “Love is the Seventh Wave”, which also acted as the second single released from the album. This track is a very ska and reggae influenced song, something that his previous band dabbled with on their early material, but thi is a much more pop related environment than those songs. The use of saxophone again even adds a touch of new wave to the song, and as a result sets itself very apart from what fans had come to expect from him. But as a solo artist, this was his vehicle to explore new material and directions, and he has taken that on here, though at the very end of the track invoking parodied lyrics from one of The Police’s great songs “Every Breath You Take”.
“Russians” was arguably the song that not only cemented Sting’s solo project, but also put the nail in his band ever going forward again either. Not a protest song as such, and while it is critical of the foreign policies of nations on both sides of the Cold War that was in effect at the time, Sting’s moral lyrics, quoting both sides and then suggesting that he doesn’t subscribe to that point of view, is hard hitting from such a prominent musician at that time. “There’s no such thing as a winnable war, it's a lie we don’t believe anymore” seems sadly to have fallen on deaf ears in the modern day, but at a time in the 1980’s when the tension was so great, Sting’s few verses here were perhaps the most profound statement of the day. It is still a powerful statement today, though there still seems like no one is truly listening. He continues on his war theme with “Children’s Crusade” describing the destruction of a generation of youth in the First World War, this time only from his own country’s point of view. “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 in 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 song cleverly and sadly parallels the destruction of the younger generation in World War I to a similar thing occurring through heroin addiction in modern-day London, in a style as gently hard hitting as his previous song was.
The music returns to a more upbeat style with “Shadows in the Rain”, a complete restyling of The Police track from their album “Zenyatta Mondatta”, and yet a style that immediately sounds like Sting’s previous band than his own solo material. In fact, this version of the song is infinitely better than the original which was always mired in a boggy tempo and a lack of enterprise, whereas this is bright and breezy and saxophone laden that increases the enjoyment throughout, not the least with Sting’s vocals here sounding like he’s having a good time. Sting returns to his social conscience again with “We Work the Black Seam Together”, with the song discussing the toils of the coal miner, the debate about nuclear energy (something that somehow continues in Australia to today) and the striking of miners in the UK during the Thatcher government’s reign during the 1980’s. Once again Sting cleverly weaves the political connotations of the time into lyrics that put forth the thoughts from the miner’s point of view in a simple and effective song with appropriately muted music. It is another wonderfully effective song musically and lyrically. “Consider Me Gone” mirrors the song “Tea in the Sahara” musically from the “Synchronicity” album, at last the bassline from Sting certainly does. This moves to the instrumental title track, a minute or so or tinkling jazz styled piano, before cruising into the slow moody crooning of “Moon Over Bourbon Street”, the very jazz club track that Sting based on the book “Interview with the Vampire”, with Sting playing the double bass here to intensify the mood he was looking for.
The album closes with “Fortress Around Your Heart”. In an interview with MUSICIAN magazine when the song was released as a single from the album, Sting was quoted saying about the track, “"Fortress" is about appeasement, about trying to bridge the gaps between individuals. The central image is a minefield that you've laid around this other person to try and protect them. Then you realize that you have to walk back through it. I think it's one of the best choruses I've ever written”. It was the song on the album that most resembled something that he would have written for his former band, and to me is the best song that he has written in his post-Police career.
“Synchronicity” was the first album I ever bought for myself. I had always enjoyed their singles, and I wanted to start hearing bands full albums, not just the songs deemed worthy of being played on the radio, and The Police was the first, and it is still one of the great albums to this day. And then the band went on ’hiatus’, and I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Sting announced that he was going to do a solo album, and it was more or less intimated at the time that the band would get back together after that and write more albums. Okay then. Everything is above board, noting to see here!
So I was looking forward to the solo album. I didn’t really consider just what it was going to mean to the music itself. I mean, Sting had been the majority shareholder in the writing stakes for The Police anyway, so I just assumed it would more or less be similar, right? Well no, that wasn’t the case, and at the time I got the album that was both good and bad. Because even though the album was not what I expected, I still really liked it. Now remember, this album was pre-heavy metal obsessionfor me, so I was listening to this kind of stuff anyway and wasn’t looking for heavy music. So the songs here are mostly very good. And lyrically they are beautiful, so well composed and put together, and that was a major part of what drew me in, reading and learning the lyrics to “Russians”, “Children’s Crusade”, “Moon Over Bourbon Street” and “Fortress Around Your Heart”. And the music is beautiful and well performed. It isn’t The Police but it is Sting and all of that comes together nicely. And I enjoyed this album.
Over the years, that has perhaps changed a bit. My heavy metal awakening came at the end of that year of 1985, and my path to the heavy side of music cast a slight pall over this album. It was no longer what I wanted to listen to. The memory of my enjoyment of listening to the album was still there, but I had no need for it anymore. The album stayed in my collection, on rare occasions coming out for a listen, especially when I met my now wife, who also loved and owned a copy of that album. But that was about it. I was drawn to The Police and those albums I loved, but rarely this one.
So for the past week and a half, this has been dusted off, and put back on all in the name of reviewing it for this podcast. And guess what? I thought it was okay. A couple of things stirred in me, but generally nothing much happened. Until I ACTUALLY listened to it, one afternoon with no one in the house. And I remembered. I felt what I had originally felt when I listened to this album as a 15 year old in my parents lounge room. I reconnected, especially to tracks such as “Russians” and “Children's Crusade” and “We Work the Black Seam”. I remembered by teenage love for “Fortress Around Your Heart” - and I, not for the first time, thanked this podcast for bringing back an album to me that I had once loved but had mostly forgotten about through the mists of time. In this case, not forgotten the album, but how much I had adored it at the time. And for me, that is what makes this podcast special to ME, because of albums like this. I’m really glad I got the opportunity to travel back in time, just for an instant, for 41 minutes and 40 seconds as it turns out, and felt like I had all those years ago.
On the flip side, my heavy metal birth meant that I have never once felt the need to check out any of Sting’s further 14 solo albums that he has released in the years since. They were never going to be for me, and I have not ventured down that path. Will this be the final time I listen to “The Dream of the Blue Turtles”? That seems less likely now after the past week.
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