Songs
The instrumental "Reggatta de Blanc", one of the few songs written by the Police as a group, came from the long instrumental break in the live performance of "Can't Stand Losing You" and earned the band the 1980 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. "Bring on the Night" is about the execution of Gary Gilmore - though purely by accident. Under its original title of "Carrion Prince", the song was about Pontius Pilate. After adapting it into "Bring on the Night" for Regatta de Blanc, Sting read The Executioner's Song and was shocked that the intentionally abstract lyrics he'd written fit exactly with Gilmore's life story. He claims that since then, "I sing it with him in mind." "The Bed's Too Big Without You" was covered by reggae singer Sheila Hylton in 1981, which became a UK Top 40 hit.
Read more about this topic: Reggatta De Blanc
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang’umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?”
—Julius K. Nyerere (b. 1922)
“Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Blues are the songs of despair, but gospel songs are the songs of hope.”
—Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972)