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Fortress Around Your Heart

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"Fortress Around Your Heart"
UK 12-inch vinyl single
Single by Sting
from the album The Dream of the Blue Turtles
B-side
  • Shadows in the Rain (Europe)
  • Consider Me Gone (live) (USA)
ReleasedAugust 1985 (US)[1]
4 October 1985 (UK)[2]
Genre
Length4:48
LabelA&M
Songwriter(s)Sting
Producer(s)
  • Sting
  • Peter Smith
Sting singles chronology
"Love Is the Seventh Wave"
(1985) 		"Fortress Around Your Heart"
(1985) 		"Russians"
(1985)
Music video
"Sting - Fortress Around Your Heart (Option Two)" on YouTube

"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

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"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

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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

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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

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Weekly charts

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Chart (1985) Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[9] 72
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[10] 40
Canada Top Singles (RPM)[11] 20
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[12] 26
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[13] 13
UK Singles (OCC)[14] 49
US Billboard Hot 100[15] 8
US Mainstream Rock (Billboard)[16] 1

Year-end

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Year-end chart (1985) Rank
US Top Pop Singles (Billboard)[17] 95

References

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  1. ^ Strong, Martin Charles (1995). The Great Rock Discography. Canongate Press. p. 792. ISBN 9780862415419.
  2. ^ "Music Week" (PDF). p. 12.
  3. ^ a b "Fortress Around Your Heart, 7"". Sting.com. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  4. ^ "discography.albums". Sting.com. Archived from the original on 9 October 2007. Retrieved 9 October 2007.
  5. ^ Hirshey, Gerri. "Sting feels the burn", Rolling Stone, September 1985.
  6. ^ "Reviews". Billboard. 17 August 1985. p. 66. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  7. ^ "Single Releases" (PDF). Cash Box. 24 August 1985. p. 9. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  8. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 8th Edition (Billboard Publications), page 606.
  9. ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 295. ISBN 0-646-11917-6. N.B. The Kent Report chart was licensed by ARIA between mid-1983 and 12 June 1988.
  10. ^ "Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  11. ^ Canada Top Singles RPM
  12. ^ "Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  13. ^ "Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart". Top 40 Singles. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  14. ^ "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  15. ^ "Sting Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  16. ^ "Sting Chart History (Mainstream Rock)". Billboard. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  17. ^ "1985 The Year in Music & Video: Top Pop Singles". Billboard. Vol. 97, no. 52. 28 December 1985. p. T-21.
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