(image from here.)
When I was a kid - I guess around the time I was a tween into my teenage years - I was pretty big fan of the Police. They seemed unlike most of the bands on the radio - & I never really liked a lot of what is now considered classic rock or heavy metal. I was too poor to buy their records but luckily they were popular - on the radio all time - & I remember funny mishearings of lyrics because I didn't know the titles of the songs. I had thought, for example, the song "Spirits In The Material World" - because Sting prefaces singing that in the song with "we are" - I thought he was saying "Obstinance In The Material World," with "obstinance" being one of those words I had to look up one time in a book I was reading. Speaking of books, I had no idea who Nabokov was, so in "Don't Stand So Close To Me," I heard Sting sing "Just like the old man & that book by now becomes..." In that sense, the song "Don't Stand So Close To Me" transformed into a book! That seemed clever to me.
In ninth grade, the Police released Synchronicity & I remember finding it very weird that someone like Sting - handsome beyond imagining, obviously filthy rich, & undoubtedly painfully self-assured - look at that picture up there! - that he would write a song like "King Of Pain." Also, the idea that the Loch Ness Monster was caused by pollution seemed pretty silly to even me at the age of fourteen. The record seemed to lack some charm but I still listened to it lots, enough to get pretty sick of the hit single on it, which for some reason I can't recall & I'm not even going to try!
But like a lot of things with popular culture, what made me lose interest in the Police ultimately was people I didn't respect who really loved the Police. It's probably a character flaw, but I have found that the fans of some artists/musicians end up making me think less of those artist/musicians - even though of course it's not the artists/musicians' fault! One of those people was a fellow in my Latin class who, for a presentation, played the song "Wrapped Around Your Finger" because it mentioned Scylla & Charybdis. That's all he did! Played the song & said, "See! It mentions Scylla & Charybdis." & he got a fucking B!
(To be fair, I don't remember what I did, but I do know it involved actual research.)
What ultimately made me lose interest in Sting - I did listen to & somewhat like Andy Summers & Stewart Copeland solo projects - though not Animal Logic - what was I saying? Oh yeah, what made me lose interest in Sting was his solo projects. I tried really hard to like the Turtles album but its singles seemed insufferable to me, & the one after that - it has a pretentious Shakespeare title & that song that I never want to hear again about we'll be together & oh fuck oh fuck now it's stuck in my head my love is a flame that burns in your name get the icepick I will just keep stabbing my brain from my ear to hopefully kill the section that keeps that song there I don't care what memories or knowledge I lose just don't make me have to think about that song ever again.
These days I can listen to the Police & enjoy them but I don't think I'll ever listen to another Sting record. & this week's show isn't about him, although I'll probably have to mention him. No, it's about the sensation of being stung. & I'll talk more about that tomorrow.
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