Lyrics by Sting Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Lyrics
Book Review: Still in the Dark
Summary: 3 Stars
It is difficult for me to admit this, since I am a big fan of Sting and his work, but this book is a real disappointment.
Granted, I'm happy enough to have it on my shelf. It's nice to have all Sting's lyrics collected in one place. It's interesting to see how I've misinterpreted some things over the years; particularly, some of the harder rocking songs of the early era of The Police, when it was more difficult to make out the words. Still, I was hoping for much more.
The biggest problem, I think, is that there's so little here beyond the lyrics themselves. I guess of was hoping for much more in terms of background, interpretation and self-criticism of the work. That would have made this volume must-have interesting. But most of the songs have nothing extra in the way of commentary by Sting and those that do are little helped by what he does have to say.
For some reason, Sting still wants to cast darkness over his years as a successful musician. His autobiography, Broken Music, is wonderful--insightful and reflective--but he stops his tale as The Police are forming. In this book he once again had an opportunity to shed some light through the lens of his lyrics and he passed it by. Hopefully, someday he'll be willing to settle down and give us his impressions of his life since the late 1970's. For now, his fans will still have to wait.
Book Review: Interesting
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed the book. Sting's music has been around for a big chunk of my adult life, and I enjoyed the insight into the thought process that lies behind each of these songs. Book Review: All Other Books Are Now Pointless
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading these mighty poetic works I had to pull my own ears off, so redundant has auditory communication now become.
The wit and insight into the human heart is matched only by Stang's deftness with rhyme. In his key early work Next To You, he declares, `But I just don't know what's come over me, You took me over take a look at me'.
This astonishing turnaround of the verbal and written word, astounding us by rhyming `me' with the contrasting word `me', is why he is an immortal multimillionaire rock god and we are but despicable lowly worms unfit to even think of the possibility of words let alone write them.
Poor Charles Darwin died yonks back, so he was not to see the conclusion of the Theory of Evolution, that it would one day end, having spent billions of years evolving eyes and hands so that people in these End Times can hold this book and look upon its pages and feel their very flesh melt into a fulminating pool of utter joy, oozing in one great pool of secretions and liquefied flesh all over the floor.
Now, with the caked blood barely congealed on the side of my head, I am going out to picket all bookshops. For, although they sell us The Great Word of Steng, they also blaspheme by supplying books other than this. The gall of them, when this - surely the last testament of talent we shall ever need - exists. To supply other books of any kind is an insult to the mighty Stong. All other books are just cultural pollution, distractions from this almighty wonder, the acme of the English language.
I've not sympathised all that much with Nazis before now, but from hereon forwards I dedicate myself to book-burning. All other books must perish.
Book Review: Mephistopheles is NOT his name
Summary: 5 Stars
I have just come back in from the garden, back from the bonfire i made of all the books in the house, including my wifes & our two daughters, Hilary [7] & Margerine [5].
And they didnt want me to, i can tell you.
I am dazed & glassy-eyed, blackened with ash & soot but strangely at peace. Why? Because half an hour ago i sat down in the gazebo & opened up the pages of this book:
'LYRICS' by sting.
My mind raced, my pulse quickened, my stomach lurched. I got scarcely further than the introduction before realizing, with all the clarity & incontinent zeal of the reborn, that this single volume would - & has - made all other books obsolete, now & for all time. What other book could compare? What sonnet of Shakespeare,for instance, could hold a floodlight to:
"I've had a thousand girls or maybe more
But I've never felt like this before
But I just don't know what's come over me
You took me over, take a look at me
So many times I used to give a sign
Got this feeling, gonna lose my mind
When all it is is just a love affair
You took me over, baby, take me there"
Here sting depicts the delirium of new love, the disturbing senseless chatter of the damp & deranged. Each line is carefully weighed to recreate precisely the tiresome, nonsensical, time-wasting thoughts that gallop through the head of a 27 year old bass-playing english teacher who has slept with a thousand women. Maybe more.
Here sting not only SPEAKS without thinking, he WRITES. And that is a rare talent indeed.
I could go on, but to polish even one of these is to leave an ugly brown stain on ones sleeve. To shine a light upon just one of Stings 'naked wares' is an ugly, unforgiveable insult to all the others, & all of this is wasted time away from this nest of treasures - for both of us, dear reader - so i'll leave it there.
Burn all your books, come follow me. A new world order is at hand, & its bible is 'LYRICS' by Sting.
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P.S - I thought 'behind my camel [instrumental]' was particularly good.
Book Review: Lyrics by Sting
Summary: 5 Stars
I am really glad I purchased this book. I love Sting's music and like to sing along. Having the lyrics and some history of his process is interesting to me. If you really like his music, this is a nice accompaniment to your collection.