1985 single by Sting

"Fortress Around Your Heart" is a hit single released from Sting`s 1985 debut solo album The Dream of the Blue Turtles. It was released as the album`s third single in the UK, and the second single in the US.

The song was later included on the U.S. release of the Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984–1994 compilation album.

Song information

"Fortress Around Your Heart" was inspired by Sting`s divorce. The pain he felt at the collapse of his first marriage led him to write some of his biggest hits, including "Every Breath You Take" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger".[3] Sting wrote the song in the studio in Barbados in 1985. The song features a Branford Marsalis sax solo.[4] In a Musician magazine interview later that year, Sting said:

"Fortress" is about appeasement, about trying to bridge the gaps between individuals. The central image is a minefield that you`ve laid around this other person to try and protect them. Then you realize that you have to walk back through it. I think it`s one of the best choruses I`ve ever written.[3]

During one of Sting`s first performances of the song in concert in Paris, his crew lowered a tiny fortress onto the stage in a parody of the similar Stonehenge scene from the film This Is Spinal Tap.[5]

Reception

Billboard said that the single is "challenging, complex and rather difficult," with "mysterious poetic imagery" and a melody that is "more recitative than hook."[6] Cash Box said that the song illustrated Sting`s "genius as songwriter," although it is "tinged with melancholy" and "less jazzy and more Police-like than Sting`s previous US single, "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free."[7]

Single release

The song was also released as a single, and reached #8 and #49 on the U.S. and U.K. singles charts, respectively. It also reached #1 for two weeks on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart, becoming his second consecutive #1 hit on this chart.[8]

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end