10 June 2008

Music of the '80s That Matters: "Fortress Around Your Heart"

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Fortress Around Your Heart: Sting & Co.

Fortress Around Your Heart is from Sting's first solo effort after The Police disbanded -- the trio has never officially broken up. That album, Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985),
is Sting's attempt to form a serious jazz band fused with, well, Sting.

In the film Bring on the Night, director Michael Apted documents the promotional tour preparation process. The live album Bring on the Night covers the tour itself; the clip above is from this tour.

And when I say all-star jazz band, I mean all-star jazz band -- just check out the lineup here. The Branford Marsalis saxophone mojo is just the start.

With such a timeless allegorical love poem as this, you deserve nothing less than access to the lyrics. They are reprinted below. Be prepared to totally dig this tune.

"Fortress Around Your Heart"
(-- Sting, album version lyrics)

Under the ruins of a walled city

Crumbling towers and beams of yellow light
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
The siege guns had been pounding all through the night
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the fields I'd known
I recognized the walls that I once made

I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid

And if I built this fortress
Around your heart

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge

For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire

Then I went off to fight some battle
That I'd invented inside my head
Away so long for years and years
You probably thought or even wished that I was dead
While the armies are all sleeping

Beneath the tattered flag we'd made

I had to stop in my tracks for fear

Of walking on the mines I'd laid


And if I built this fortress around your heart

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire

Then let me build a bridge

For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire

....
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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great choice! One of my long time favorites. Always liked "Consider me gone" also.

-Ramona

PS: Sting could put his shoes under my bed any time.

Anonymous said...

Ramona Rocks!

Paco Malo said...

Publisher's Note:

Regarding "Ramona Rocks" -- she does indeed, just like Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Rock 'n Roller":

"She's too cute to be a minute over seventeen."

True also, with a bullet, of Muse for this post.

Unknown said...

... ;)

My daughter and I do a version of
Sting's 'Fields of Gold'..but really, it's a version of Eva Cassidy's version...So I guess on Father's Day that should be considered a grandsong
or great-grandsong..not sure which.

Too early.

I can almost take you to the exact spot on Narcoossee road that I decided I like this song..Paco, and it was 1983-4..one of those years, lol.

Happy Father's Day

Paco Malo said...

If this is CSason from Duane-junkie-ville, we gotta make that road trip. With one detour -- o're to the crossroads where Mr. Johnson traded his soul to the Devil for the first rock 'n roll riffs.

Unknown said...

yep it's me.. nice site !!!

Paco Malo said...

Owen,

Knowing you as I do from Duane Pic Wednesdays, that is high praise indeed.

Thanks,

Jukebox Jim (aka Paco Malo)