Sting - Dream Of The Blue Turtles
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 01.06.1985
Gordon had a dream. In it, he was sitting in the walled garden behind his home in Hampstead, beneath a lilac tree on a perfectly maintained lawn, surrounded by beautiful rose bushes.
Suddenly, bricks from the wall began collapsing into the garden. It could not be happening. Gordon watched in shock as the head of a gigantic turtle emerged from the darkness, followed by four or five others, all of them human-sized.
He noticed something even stranger. Not only were they as large as people, they were blue and completely fearless. They did not attack him, but with almost casual violence they destroyed his English garden, tearing up the grass with their claws, ripping out the rose bushes, and pushing over the lilac tree with a tremendous crash.
The moment the lilac tree fell, Gordon woke up abruptly from the dream. At the time, he was in Barbados searching for meaning in what he had just experienced.
With no famous dream interpreter available to help him, he eventually decided to name his first solo album "The Dream of the Blue Turtles", which was released on June 1, 1985.
Leaving a band like "The Police" was already a major gamble. Leaving after a peak such as "Synchronicity", an album that won Grammy Awards and turned "The Police" into one of the dominant rock bands of the era, seemed even more extreme.
In the end, growing tensions within the band and the desire of each member to pursue individual creative projects led to the decision to take a break. Stewart Copeland began composing film soundtracks, while Andy Summers recorded two albums with Robert Fripp.
The hiatus left Sting free to begin his solo career. He started exploring his artistic identity and searching for new sources of inspiration. He wanted to be taken more seriously not only as a musician, but also as a lyricist, producer, and songwriter.
The more people tried to define him by labels, the more restricted he felt. He wanted the freedom to constantly change and evolve, and he had little patience for creative repetition.
Sting felt that he had largely exhausted the possibilities of traditional rock music and began moving toward a blend of pop, rock, and jazz. His vision was to create a rock record infused with jazz influences, supported by musicians capable of speaking both musical languages. To achieve this, he assembled an exceptional lineup that included saxophonist Branford Marsalis, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland, drummer Omar Hakim of "Weather Report", and future "The Rolling Stones" bassist Darryl Jones.
His goal was to work with musicians who possessed the subtlety and improvisational instincts associated with jazz, while creating music that would not be confined by that label. The result was a record that reached musical territories rarely explored by mainstream pop releases.
Many listeners were expected to be surprised by the album because it was neither a traditional jazz record nor a conventional pop album. Its unique blend of styles challenged easy categorization and raised questions about how radio stations would respond to it.
With that broader perspective in mind, many of the major social, political, and cultural issues of the period found their way into Sting’s lyrics throughout the album.
Sting later explained that he enjoyed treating songs as a modular system, borrowing and reshaping ideas from different compositions. That approach appears in "Love Is the Seventh Wave", where he briefly and playfully references "Every Breath You Take".
The music video features Sting as an elementary school teacher, a nod to his profession before becoming a full-time musician. Throughout the clip, he performs among artwork created by his students.
The anxiety created by escalating Cold War tensions, which was reflected in films such as The Day After (1983), found its way into the powerful and deeply moving "Russians". Built around musical themes inspired by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, the song became one of the album's most enduring statements.
In "Russians", Sting delivers a chilling summary of nuclear deterrence, mutually assured destruction, and the ever-present threat of global annihilation. The song's central message offers a rare glimmer of hope amid the fear, suggesting that beyond political ideology and military posturing, ordinary people on both sides share the same human concerns.
To many Americans at the time, the Soviet Union was portrayed as an "evil empire" determined to destroy the West. "Russians" challenged that narrative by searching for compassion within the rhetoric of the Cold War, presenting a perspective that was rarely heard in mainstream popular music during that period.
Sting later explained that he enjoyed treating songs as a modular system, borrowing and combining lines and ideas from different compositions. That approach can be heard in "Love Is the Seventh Wave", where he makes a brief and playful reference to "Every Breath You Take".
The music video features Sting as an elementary school teacher, the profession he held before launching his music career. Throughout the clip, he appears among artwork created by his students.
The anxiety surrounding escalating Cold War tensions, which was reflected in films such as The Day After (1983), finds powerful expression in the moving "Russians", built around musical themes inspired by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.
In "Russians", Sting delivers a chilling reflection on nuclear deterrence, mutually assured destruction, and the constant threat of global annihilation. The song's only saving grace, as he suggests, is the belief that "the Russians love their children too."
To many Americans at the time, the Soviet Union was portrayed as an "Evil Empire" whose goal was the destruction of the West. "Russians" searches for compassion beneath the political rhetoric, offering a perspective that was rarely heard in mainstream popular music during that era.
Not everyone agreed with Sting's perspective. "The Police" drummer Stewart Copeland, whose father had worked for the CIA, viewed the Cold War through a very different lens. As Copeland later explained, no matter how strong his political arguments might have been, Sting could disarm them with a simple line such as "the Russians love their children too." Copeland famously remarked that it was impossible to argue with a poet.
The lyric "How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?" references the atomic bomb developed under the leadership of American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, often referred to as the father of the atomic bomb.
Sting later recalled how, while in New York, he discovered that local television broadcasts occasionally carried Soviet children's programming. Watching those shows led him to a simple but profound realization: Russian parents cared about their children just as much as American parents did. That observation became one of the central ideas behind "Russians."
He originally hoped to record the song in the Soviet Union with the Leningrad State Orchestra, but bureaucratic and political obstacles ultimately prevented the collaboration from happening.
Following a reworked version of "Shadows in the Rain" from "The Police", the album reaches one of Sting's most personal statements with "We Work the Black Seam". The song was inspired by the British miners' strike that dominated the year before the album's release, a bitter conflict between coal miners and the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The lyrics express the miners' deep connection to their profession and emphasize the importance of coal mining to Britain's economy and cultural identity. Sting also weaves references to William Blake's And did those feet in ancient time while criticizing Thatcher's economic policies, particularly the government's push toward nuclear power as a replacement for coal.
The subject was especially meaningful to Sting because of his roots in northeastern England. Growing up near Newcastle, he witnessed firsthand how entire communities depended on mining for their livelihoods. He felt that during the strike, too few voices were defending the importance of coal while also questioning the growing reliance on nuclear energy.
His father had worked in shipbuilding, another industry that once stood at the heart of Britain's economy before declining throughout the twentieth century. The song therefore reflects not only political concerns, but also Sting's personal connection to the industrial communities that shaped his upbringing.
The album closes with two songs wrapped in a smoky jazz atmosphere. The first is "Moon over Bourbon Street", inspired by Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire.
"Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire was the direct inspiration for this song, but there was one moonlit night in the French Quarter of New Orleans when I had the distinct impression that I was being followed." – Sting
The song placed radio programmers in an awkward position. Sting was one of the biggest artists in the world at the time, yet "Moon over Bourbon Street" did not fit comfortably into any established radio format. As a result, it received relatively little airplay in the United States, while a number of British stations proved more adventurous and added it to their playlists.
For the closing track "Fortress Around Your Heart", Sting set out to write what he described as a reconciliation song. The lyrics use the image of an abandoned fortress within a walled city as a metaphor for a relationship that has survived a figurative war, with the narrator finally ready to leave the battles behind and seek peace.
Reflecting on what once existed between the two people, Sting sings about building bridges and extinguishing old conflicts. Yet he recognizes that reconciliation will not come easily, because he must first cross the very battlefield where he once planted the mines himself.
The song was inspired by Sting's divorce from his first wife, Frances Tomelty. The pain and regret he felt over the collapse of that marriage became a recurring source of inspiration for some of his most celebrated songwriting, including "Every Breath You Take" and "King of Pain."
Unlike much of the album, Sting also played the bass guitar himself on "Fortress Around Your Heart", bringing an additional personal touch to one of the record's most intimate and reflective moments.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
Comments