Sting Trivia

1. 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' is Sting's debut solo album, released in June 1985. 'Russians' was the fourth song to be released from the album, in November 1986. Which Russian composer's music provides a recurring sample throughout the song?

From Quiz The Sting

Answer: Sergei Prokofiev

To be precise, it's the 'Romance' movement from 'Lieutenant Kije', Prokofiev's score for the film of the same name, about a fictional lieutenant made up by Tsar Paul I's officials. Prokofiev himself based the tune on a folk song, 'The Little Grey Dove is Cooing'. 'Russians' was inspired by the Cold War and the arms race between the Soviet Union and the USA, namechecking both Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and US President Ronald Reagan, and also features a sample of Russian newsreader Igor Kirilov. 'Terminator' director James Cameron has stated that the character of John Connor was inspired by 'Russians'.

From Quiz Sting's "Ten Summoner's Tales"

Answer: Geoffrey Chaucer

In Sting's 2007 book "Lyrics", he explained his inspiration for the composition and recording of the album "Ten Summoner's Tales": "In 1992 we moved the family out to the country, to a run-down manor house built in the sixteenth century that needed some care and attention. The gardens were beautiful, and walking in them was like walking into a dream. It was called Lake House. I felt inspired to write, and, for the first time in years, with a genuine spirit of happiness. There were no grand concepts, no plan, except to have fun telling stories in as many diverse styles and moods as I could think of. It is this carefree spirit that pervades the album and helped it to become one of my most popular records. The title was a mischievous conceit linking my surname, Sumner, with the scurrilous character in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. There was nothing more to it than that, and subtitling the first and last songs ['If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' and 'Nothing 'bout Me'] 'Prologue' and 'Epilogue' was just further mischief". (The Summoner in Chaucer's "Tales" told one of the many completed tales in the collection, and the first part of the "Tales" is Chaucer's famous 'Prologue' cataloging all of the characters.) While this explanation might lead one to assume the album is a concept album, it truly isn't one. The album does remain one of his most popular and critically successful. It peaked at number two in both the U.S. and U.K. album charts and managed to garner six Grammy Award nominations for Sting in 1994: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Engineered Album (non-Classical), Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Long Form Music Video. He won Grammys for the last three of these nominations. The long form video was a live recording of Sting and a three-member band performing almost all of the songs in the order they appear on the album. The recording occurred in his own home, Lake House. A truly trivial piece of information--according to Wikipedia, "On 11 August 1994, the compact disc for 'Ten Summoner's Tales' became the first item ever securely purchased over the internet, for $12.48 plus shipping".

From Quiz Sting's "The Dream of the Blue Turtles"

Answer: guitar

Sting did play double bass on "Moon over Bourbon Street" but guitar on all the other tracks, with some additional guitar playing by Robert Ashworth. Released in June of 1985, "The Dream of the Blue Turtles" was Sting's first album after the unofficial break-up of the band The Police. It climbed to number one on the Australian Kent Music Report, to number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, and to number three on the UK Albums Chart. It also reached Triple Platinum status for sales in the United States. Furthermore, it was nominated for Album of the Year at the 1986 Grammy Awards and was given four stars by "The Rolling Stone" album review. The album's sleeve contains these words by Sting: "Since I started this thing, people have consistently referred to it as my solo album, which of course is ridiculous. It's as if I had done everything myself. Well, I didn't. The contribution and commitment of all those involved made it far less an indulgent and personal statement than a statement about how well people can work together without diluting or compromising ideas or ideals. We also had a lot of fun."

From Quiz Sting's Literature Course

Answer: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The first three lines from Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" are, "Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table." It's certainly an awkward simile spoken by a character who suffers from an inability or an unwillingness to communicate intimately with anyone. Sting admits that he "shamelessly lifted" the line and justified his doing so with more of Eliot's words: "Bad poets borrow, good poets steal." "Bring on the Night" can be found on the 1979 album by The Police called "Regatta de Blanc." Both Eliot's poem and Sting's song incorporate the theme of longing.

From Quiz Odd One Out (Sting's Music)

Answer: Message in a Bottle

Symbolically, the singer in "Message in a Bottle" refers to himself as a "castaway," and he must have found himself in that situation after traveling by some means, but that means is never mentioned in the song. In "One World (Not Three)," Sting sings: "I don't want to bring a sour note / But remember this before you vote / We can all sink or we all float / 'Cause we're all in the same big boat." In "Demolition Man," he sings, "Tied to the tracks and the train's fast coming." In "Don't Stand So Close to Me," you can hear these words: "Wet bus stop, she's waiting, his car is warm and dry."

From Quiz Sting and his Music

Answer: Gordon Sumner

Sting was born Gordon Sumner in Wallsend, England, in 1952. He is said to have acquired the nickname Sting in honour of a striped sweater he wore.

From Quiz Collaborations with Sting

Answer: Craig David

The song contains the guitar arrangement from "The Shape Of My Heart", which Craig David loved and so wrote this song based around the riff. The song appears on the album "Slicker Than Your Average". Coincidentally, also in 2003 The Sugarbabes have also sampled and created their own sound to "The Shape Of My Heart" - Sting's vocals also appear on this track.

From Quiz "Fields of Gold"

Answer: west wind moves

The lyrics to "Fields of Gold" were actually written by Sting himself.

From Quiz Sting Lyrics

Answer: 'Why Should I Cry For You'

From 1991's 'The Soul Cages.'

From Quiz The Sting

Answer: Anne Rice

'Moon Over Bourbon Street' was the fifth and final single to be released from 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles', and features Sting playing double bass. Bourbon Street is a historic street in the French quarter of New Orleans, the setting for many of Rice's books, and Sting was inspired to write the song by 'Interview with the Vampire', which would be made into a film eight years later. He composed the song while in New Orleans. It is one of the more jazz-influenced songs on 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles', and the single included a cover of 'Mack the Knife' as a B-side.

From Quiz Odd One Out, Part 2 (Sting's Music)

Answer: The Remains of the Day

In 1982's "Brimstone and Treacle," Sting plays the lead role of Martin Taylor, a twisted young man who tries to take advantage of a guilt-ridden father and his invalid daughter. He acts alongside Denholm Elliot (remember Marcus Brody from the Indiana Jones films?). The Police performed a few original songs for the soundtrack to the film, and Sting also recorded for the film his first solo "Spread a Little Happiness," a 1930's tune. In 1984's "Dune," Sting plays Feyd-Rautha, Maud-dib's nemesis, from the Frank Herbert science fiction novels. In 1985's "The Bride," Sting plays the Baron Charles Frankenstein, in yet another retelling of a combination of Mary Shelley's tale and "the Bride of Frankenstein." In all three of these films, he plays a villainous character. "The Remains of the Day" was a 1993 film starring Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Christopher Reeve.

From Quiz Sting's Literature Course

Answer: Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov left his native Russia in 1917 following the Bolshevik Revolution and after living throughout other places in Europe settled in the United States during the 1940s. The book he is most well known for is "Lolita," a novel about, as "The Atlantic Monthly" described it, an "affair between a middle-aged sexual pervert and a twelve-year-old girl." The book was so controversial that for three years it went unpublished in the United States. The song "Don't Stand So Close to Me" can be found on The Police's 1980 album "Zenyatta Mondatta." Before he found success as a musician, Sting worked for a while as an instructor at St. Paul's First School, where he taught eight-year-old boys and girls; he insists the song is not autobiographical.

From Quiz Odd One Out (Sting's Music)

Answer: Shape of My Heart

"Hungry for You" has an alternate title--"J'aurai toujours faim de toi." Most of this Police tune from "Ghost in the Machine" is in French except for the version of the chorus sung at the end of the song. "Perfect Love . . . Gone Wrong" from the "Brand New Day" album includes a couple of interludes of a rap-like chant in French. "They Dance Alone," also known as "Cueca Solo," from ". . . Nothing like the Sun" has an interlude spoken in Spanish; of course, the ". . . Nada como el Sol" version is sung entirely en Espanol.

From Quiz Sting: Life, Lyrics, Movies

Answer: Oldest of four

Sting has a younger brother, Philip, and two younger sisters, Angela and Anita.

From Quiz Collaborations with Sting

Answer: Money For Nothing

This song was from the "Brothers In Arms" album. Sting sang the line "I want my MTV" which followed the same tune as "Don't Stand So Close to Me" from an earlier Police hit.

From Quiz "Fields of Gold"

Answer: Barley

"You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky..."

From Quiz Sting Lyrics

Answer: 'Consider Me Gone'

From Sting's first solo album, 1985's 'The Dream Of the Blue Turtles.'

From Quiz The Sting

Answer: We Work the Black Seam

Sting's hometown of Wallsend, Newcastle, was a mining town like many areas in the north-east of England, and 'the black seam' refers to coal. From 6th March 1984 to 3rd March 1985, led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Miners, British miners went on strike in protest against planned pit closures under Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. The lyrics of the song focus on the transition from coal to nuclear energy as a source of electricity in the UK ('one day in a nuclear age/they may understand our rage'), as nuclear energy was supposedly 'cheap and clean' compared to coal. Carbon-14, which Sting mentions in the chorus ('deadly for 12,000 years is carbon-14') is a nuclear isotope with a half-life of 5730 years; the fact that nuclear waste takes so long to decay is an often-cited downside of nuclear energy. As an aside, my parents were supporters of the miners' strike, and this song got a lot of airplay in our house.

From Quiz Sting's Literature Course

Answer: The Odyssey

In Homer's "The Odyssey," Odysseus (or Ulysses) must sail his ship through the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Italy. On one side is the Scylla, and on the other, the Charybdis. To sail safely away from one is to sail too close to the other, and neither is a comfortable choice: the Scylla is a six-headed beast who eats sailors, and the Charybdis is a gaping mouth in the ocean that creates inescapable whirlpools. Odysseus chooses to sail closer to Scylla and, thus, loses only a few men rather than his entire ship. Since "The Odyssey" the phrase has often been used to describe someone caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. "Wrapped Around Your Finger" is on The Police's 1983 "Synchronicity" album.

From Quiz Sting and his Music

Answer: Frances Tomelty

Sting married actress Frances Tomelty in the 1970s, and they have a son and daughter.

From Quiz Collaborations with Sting

Answer: James Taylor

This song came from the James Taylor album "Hourglass" recorded in 1997. Other famous voices featured on the album are Shawn Colvin and Stevie Wonder.

From Quiz "Fields of Gold"

Answer: fields of gold

"So she took her love, for to gaze awhile, upon the fields of barley..."

From Quiz Sting Lyrics

Answer: 'The Hounds Of Winter'

The opening track to 1996's 'Mercury Falling,' and one of my favorite Sting songs ever.

From Quiz The Sting

Answer: Poppy

In the UK and other Commonwealth countries, the poppy is associated with the First World War because it grew plentifully on the battlefields in Belgium and France, and the Canadian surgeon John McCrae wrote 'In Flanders Fields' as a tribute to those who had died in the war. It is customary to wear a red paper poppy on Remembrance Day (11th November). However, the poppy also has another dark association: the fluid of opium poppy seeds is used to make opium, which is in turn converted into heroin. The line 'poppies for young men, death's bitter trade/such bitter trade' refers to both the First World War and the source of heroin. Sting compares the deaths of young men in 1914, when the First World War began, to the deaths of young men seventy years later from heroin overdoses in 1984, when the use of heroin was on the rise in the UK.

From Quiz Sting's "The Soul Cages"

Answer: the saxophone

Marsalis was born in 1960 in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana; his parents--Ellis and Dolores--were both educators and jazz musicians, his father, a pianist, and his mother, a vocalist. His brothers--Wynton, Jason, Ellis III, and Delfeayo--are also jazz musicians; perhaps Wynton, a trumpeter, is the most well-known out of the group as he has won several Grammy Awards as well as a Pulitzer Prize for Music. In the 1980s Branford and Wynton were part of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, but following Branford's release of his own album "Scenes in the City", he joined Sting to record "The Dream of the Blue Turtles" and to tour with Sting following the release of that album. From 1992 to 1995, Branford Marsalis was the leader of the "Tonight Show" band during the initial years of Jay Leno's tenure as host of the "Tonight Show". Throughout his career, he has played with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Connick Jr., and The Grateful Dead, and he has acted in such films as "Throw Mama from the Train" and "School Daze". He has also created the Branford Marsalis Quartet, which has focused on classical and world music, released recordings, and won a Grammy award.

From Quiz Odd One Out, Part 2 (Sting's Music)

Answer: Every night you pray

Not only is "Every Breath You Take" Sting's greatest hit, but it is one of the greatest songs in contemporary music history. In 1983, the song was Number One on The Billboard Music Charts for eight weeks (that's two months), and currently it is #25 on Billboards All Time Top 100. "Rolling Stone" magazine listed "Every Breath You Take" at number 84 on its list of Top 500 Songs of All Time. Furthermore, at the 1984 Grammy Awards, Sting won the Grammy for Best Song with "Every Breath You Take," and The Police won the Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The song is infamous for its deception and ambiguity: while sounding like a simple and sweet love song, the words are those of an obsessed if not sinister man who is driven by surveillance and control. Perhaps it is a fitting song for 1983, a year before the setting of Orwell's prophetic novel about government control.

From Quiz Sting's Literature Course

Answer: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

In Christopher Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus," Mephistopheles is the demon who confronts Doctor Faustus when he attempts to summon a being from Hell. Mephistopheles eventually becomes the go-between for Faustus and Lucifer as Faustus trades his soul for a limited time of power and knowledge, and he accompanies him on many of his ridiculous excursions. The Faust legend is certainly much older than Marlowe's play, which was performed for the first time around 1592, and the use of the name "Mephistopheles" for Satan is older than the Faust legend. Its origin seems to come from several words that when put together mean "not a lover of light." In the UK, "Wrapped Around Your Finger" reached number seven on the charts, and in the US, it reached number eight. "Scylla," "Charybdis," and "Mephistopheles" were introduced to a younger audience that considered literature something alien.

From Quiz Odd One Out (Sting's Music)

Answer: I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying

While "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" mentions "star" or "stars" five different times, there is no specific reference to the Dog Star. The first two lines of "Why Should I Cry for You?" are "Under the Dog Star sail / Over the reefs of moonshine" (there goes another "moon" reference). In "This Cowboy Song" from "Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting" collection, Sting alternately sings "You'll be my" and "I'll be your" "Dog Star shining tonight"; then he ends the song repeating "Dog Star." Interestingly, there's another "moon" reference in the song: the cowboys ride all night and have "no moon to light [their] way." "Valparaiso" from 1996's "Mercury Falling" album begins, "Chase the Dog Star / Over the sea" and ends, "Under the moonlight, there she can safely go / Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso." "The Dog Star" is another name for the star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Sirius is often referred to as "the Dog Star" because it is located in the constellation Canis Major or "the Big Dog." Its prominence in the night sky marked the flooding of the Nile in ancient Egypt and conversely the "dog days of summer" for the ancient Greeks. It was also highly important to navigation, particularly in the Pacific.

From Quiz Sting: Life, Lyrics, Movies

Answer: An acoustic guitar

Sting had saved up this money from assisting his father on milk rounds. He'd gone to look at it every day for three months hoping nobody would buy it. Considering what was to come, I'm glad he got his hands on it!

From Quiz Sting and his Music

Answer: Fiction Plane

Fiction Plane is the name of the band. Its debut album was "Everything Will Never Be OK", in 2003. Joe is Sting's eldest son, whose mother is Frances Tomelty.

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