An interview with Sting

I’ve always loved Sting’s quirkiness, eloquence, and creativeness, his way with verse, chorus and bridge. I think back to such songs as Fortress Around Your Heart. I remember the first time I heard it, and how swept away I was with the not only the melody, but the words were fire, a blend of love and war! Some people are Word men and he’s a significant one.

Under the ruins of a walled city
Crumbling towers and beams of yellow lights
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
The siege guns have been pounding through the nights
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the field's I'd known
I recognized the walls that I'd once laid
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 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

This prison has now become your home
A sentence you seem prepared to pay
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the lands I'd known
I recognized the fields where I'd once played
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