For the first time in Morocco, Sting - world renowned artist, activist, author, actor, philanthropist and composer of such hits as 'Englishman in New York', 'Fields of Gold', 'Desert Rose' and 'Roxanne' - has been added to the amazing list of artists who performed at Rabat's Mawazine Festival - Rhythms of the World which was held from May 21st to May 29th, 2010.
The former lead singer and bassist of the British rock band ;The Police; performed on the outdoor stage of the OLM Souissi for Rabat's Mawazine Festival - Rhythms of the World on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 at 9:30 PM. Sting's concert undoubtedly was a highlight of this years' Mawazine edition, performing alongside the Royal Symphony Orchestra.
The concert consisted of his most celebrated hits as well as songs off his latest album 'If On a Winter's Night...' This critically-acclaimed release finds Sting in collaboration with renowned producer/arranger Robert Sadin and featured a collection of traditional music spanning the centuries.
A milkman's son from Newcastle, England, Sting was a teacher, soccer coach and ditchdigger before turning to music. Inspired equally by jazz and the Beatles, he met Stewart Copeland and they, along with guitarist Andy Summers, formed the Police in 1977. The band quickly became a success both in the UK and U.S. scoring several No. 1 hits including 'Roxanne', 'Every Breath You Take', 'King of Pain', and 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'.
They earned five Grammy Awards and two Brits, and in 2003 the band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The trio's live work forecast the astonishing inventiveness and range of influences that Sting would realize fully in his solo career.
With the release of 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' in 1985, followed by 'Bring On The Night', 'Nothing Like The Sun', 'The Soul Cages', 'Ten Summoner's Tales', 'Mercury Falling', 'Brand New Day', 'All This Time', 'Sacred Love' and 'Songs From the Labyrinth', Sting has evolved into one of the world's most distinctive and highly respected performers, collecting as a solo performer an additional 11 Grammys,
2 Brits, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, three Oscar nominations, Billboard Magazine's Century Award, and MusiCares 2004 Person of the Year.
He has appeared in 15 films, Executive Produced the critically acclaimed, 'A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints', and in 1989 starred in a Broadway play the 'Three penny Opera'.
Also an accomplished author, Sting published a memoir entitled 'Broken Music' in 2003, which spent 13 weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Most recently, he released 'Lyrics'- a comprehensive collection of lyrics and personal commentary, also featuring photographs from throughout his career.
In 2007, The Police reformed and embarked on a world tour. This much heralded tour played to over 3.7 million people on five continents and ranked as the third highest grossing tour of all time. The Police world tour also garnered numerous accolades including 'Major Tour of the Year' (Pollstar), 'Top Selling' and 'Top Tour of the Year' (Billboard) as well as the People's Choice award for 'Favorite Reunion Tour of 2007.'
Sting's support for human rights organization like the Rainforest Foundation, Amnesty International, and Live Aid mirrors his art in its universal outreach. Along with wife Trudie Styler, Sting founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1989 to protect both the world's rain forests and the indigenous peoples who live there.
For the 9th Mawazine edition, festival goers experienced Sting's first-ever performance in Morocco.
Moon Over Bourbon Street
This was inspired by the Anne Rice novel Interview With The Vampire. Police guitarist Andy Summers gave Sting the book.
I Hung My Head
The man runs to the salt lands, throwing the rifle into a stream. He is discovered by a sheriff, and is struck by the realization of what he has done. He is brought before a judge and jury, where he begs forgiveness and wishes he was dead.- Wikipedia
Awaiting execution on the gallows, he sees as a "trick of the brain" the rider return, so that they will ride together "til kingdom come". The man prays to God for mercy.
Sting removed the punk-influenced “Next To You” by tastefully substituting these with violins, cellos and clarinets; while retaining its upbeat melody.
Wrapped around finger - Morocco Philharmonic Orchestra
The song is a tale of an apprentice who seeks esoteric wisdom under the tutelage of an exotic teacher, eventually superseding the mentor to become the master; this revelation "turns the mentor's face to alabaster" (i.e. makes him go pale), suggesting he can expect harsh treatment from his former student.
It has a relatively slow, almost foreboding feel in the beginning verses, modulating to evoke a lighter, triumphant feel as the student achieves mastery. It reached #7 in the UK charts in July 1983 and was the fourth single from Synchronicity to chart in the US, making it to #8 on the Billboard chart in March 1984.- Wikipedia
Whenever I Say Your Name
Despite the song's lack of commercial success, it did win the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for music released in 2003.
The song is easily among the most complex works Sting has authored. It is composed in f-sharp minor, using half dimished chords right from the first Verse.
The Chorus section is heavily reminiscent of Mozart's Requiem, with its cycle-of-fifths progression and mostly unresolved harmonies. In terms of chord structure, no Sting song comes closer to Classical Music than "Whenever I say your name".- Wikipedia
Fields of Gold
This is about feeling joyous, but knowing that the joy is going to end someday.
Sting wrote this after he bought a house near a barley field. The sunsets and the colors of the field were an inspiration for the lyrics, along with his love at the time.
The major theme in this is commitment. It is about a man who has broken promises before, but is determined make this relationship last.
The story is chronological. It is about courtship, marriage, and eventual death. The two people in the song meet, court, fall in love (at this point, he reveals that he has never really made such a strong promise/commitment to someone) but feels he is ready to now. "See the children run," their offspring and the "jealous sky" refer to the Heavens. Even Heaven is jealous of their love/relationship. The esteemed sun is jealous. Eventually, he dies and tells his love that they will always remember their love specifically, when she thinks of him, he wants to be personified as such... walking in fields of gold (barley).
Sting started writing this on the guitar. He thinks his simple songs are often his best, and uses this as an example.
When We Dance-- Sting told at Parkinson's talk show in 2004 (after Broken Music was published) that this song is written from a perspective of a lover to a married woman. In this case, his mother's lover. In Broken Music he tells the story that his mother had an affair with a man named Alan. The song is personal and the religiuos imagery is part of it because the people involved (including Sting) grew up with it. Alan later lived with Sting's mother when she was already sick with cancer until she died. Since then nobody of the family has spoken of it in public apart from Sting's autobiography. But that is perfectly understandable because Alan wouldn't want reporters on his doorstep asking about his past that caused so much pain for everyone involved.
Sting quote:
I wanted to bookend the Greatest Hits album with two new songs. It's presumptuous, because you don't know if a song's going to be a hit, but 'When We Dance' seems to be going in the right direction. I'd never tried to write a hit before, a song designed to be played on the radio. This is basically a generic ballad, but it took me a year to write. I had no main idea for the song, so I came up with this love triangle. I love you and you love him. It has a flattened fifth at the end of the first line. It's an unusual, uncomfortable sound, which suits the situation in the lyrics."
Message in a Bottle --This song is about a guy stranded on a remote island. One day he finds a bottle, puts a message in it and throws it out to sea in hopes that someone will find it and come save him. The lyrics can be seen as a metaphor for being lonely and realizing there are lots of people just like you.
Every Little Thing She Does is Magic
It was a hit single that reached the top of the charts in the United Kingdom in November 1981 and hit number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart that same year.
Although released in 1981, Sting had written this song as early as 1976. A very early (1977) acoustic version of this song performed by him can be heard on the Strontium 90 album Strontium 90: Police Academy.
Sting added this bit of "Every Little Thing..." lyrics to the end of "O My God" on the Police's 1983 release Synchronicity:
"Do I have to tell the story
Of a thousand rainy days
Since we first met?
It's a big enough umbrella
But it's always me that ends up getting wet."
These lyrics were later reused once more in Sting's "Seven Days" on his solo album Ten Summoner's Tales.
If I Ever Lose My Faith in You
The song won the 1994 Grammy award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, while it was also nominated for Record of the Year and for Song of the Year.
In 2009, another trumpeter and friend of Sting, Chris Botti covered the song along with Sting on vocals. The song was released from the Chris Botti: Live in Boston.
A track from Ten
Summoner’s Tales, the fourth solo studio album by the rock musician Sting. The
title is a combined pun of his given name, Gordon Sumner, and a character in
Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the summoner. Released in 1993, it
explores themes of love and morality in a noticeably upbeat mood compared to
his previous release, the introspective The Soul Cages.
The single was one of the biggest of 1983, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks and the UK Singles Chart for four weeks. It also topped the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart for nine weeks. Sting won Song of the Year and The Police won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the Grammy Awards of 1984 for "Every Breath You Take".
The song ranked #84 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and #25 on Billboard's Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs. This song is considered to be The Police's signature song, and is estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of Sting's music publishing income.
The song had a music video (directed by duo Godley & Creme) that was praised for its black-and-white cinematography. Both MTV (1999) and VH1 (2002) named it as one of the best music videos ever, placing it 16th and 33rd in their respective top 100 lists. Daniel Pearl won the first MTV cinematography award for his work on the video.
The track was written during the collapse of Sting's marriage to Frances Tomelty; the lyrics are the words of a sinister, controlling character, who is watching "every breath you take; every move you make".
I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.—Sting
Sting later said he was disconcerted by how many people think the song is more positive than it is. He insists it's about unrequited love (the song was written at the time he and his then wife divorced), about the obsession with the lost lover, the jealousy and surveillance that followed. "One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'" When asked why he appears angry in the music video Sting told BBC Radio 2, "I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have misinterpreted it as being a gentle, little love song......
MORE @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Breath_You_Take
Roxanne
Sting wrote the song, inspired by the prostitutes he saw near the band's seedy hotel while in Paris, France in October 1977 to perform at the Nashville Club. The title of the song comes from the name of the character in the play Cyrano de Bergerac, an old poster of which was hanging in the hotel foyer.
Sting had originally conceived the song as a bossa nova, although he credits Police drummer Stewart Copeland for suggesting its final rhythmic form as a tango. During recording, Sting accidentally sat down on a piano keyboard in the studio, resulting in the atonal piano chord and laughter preserved at the beginning of the track.- Wikipedia
Fragile - (End)
Fragile is a song from Sting’s 1987 album Nothing Like the Sun. Released as a single the following year, it placed to number 70 on the UK Singles Chart. Sung additionally in both Spanish and Portuguese under the title Fragilidad, it appeared twice more on his 1988 EP variant of the album, Nada como el sol. The Spanish version features as a b-side to "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying".
The song is a tribute to Ben Linder, an American civil engineer who was killed by the Contras in 1987 while working on a hydroelectric project in Nicaragua. It was one of the songs that it appeared in the 1992 Academy Awards video "The Panama Deception", which explains what really happened during the U.S. Invasion of Panama in December 20, 1989. It also was used in many ads after the September 11th tragedy and was the opening song in Sting's All This Time concert, recorded that evening.
Desert Rose
The
song is noted for Sting's duet performance with Algerian raï singer Cheb Mami,
creating a distinct world music feel to the song. Cheb
Mami wrote some of the lyrics in Arabic. Sting did not know what they meant,
but they happened to follow the same theme as Sting's English lyrics -
"longing."
Artists
like Sting who play to adult audiences have a hard time getting their songs
played on the radio and have very little chance of getting on MTV. This
makes it very hard to promote their new songs. Sting's manager at the time,
Miles Copeland (brother of Stewart Copeland from The Police), found a new way
to promote this song and helped make it a hit.
When
they shot the video, they needed a stylish car that would show Sting being
driven through the desert on the way to a club. The director used a new Jaguar
S-Type, and when the video was done, Copeland thought it looked like a car
commercial. Copeland sent the video to Jaguar's advertising agency and asked them
to make their car commercial look like the video in exchange for free use of
the song. The Jaguar people loved the idea and ran commercials featuring the
song that looked very similar to the video.
This
got the song heard, which resulted in radio play and a hit record. For
Jaguar, they got great exposure in the video and use of a hit song in their
commercial, which made people more likely to watch it. Sales of Jaguars jumped
as younger buyers checked out the cars. Copeland and Sting found a new way to
promote a song.
Sting
performed this with Mami at the 2000 Grammys.
In
2001, Sting went on a world tour where he played various exotic locations,
including the Baalbek International Festival in Lebanon.
Englishman in New York
The "Englishman" in question is the famous eccentric Quentin Crisp. Sting wrote the song not long after Crisp moved from London to an apartment in New York's Bowery. Crisp had remarked jokingly to the musician "...that he looked forward to receiving his naturalization papers so that he could commit a crime and not be deported."
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