Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart: Lyrics and Music Video
Fortress Around Your Heart by Sting lyrics and music video. You can sing while listening to the song Fortress Around Your Heart performed by Sting. Hope you like the music video and song lyrics for Fortress Around Your Heart.
About the Song
"Fortress Around Your Heart" is a song by Sting from his debut solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985). Released as the third single from the album, it became one of his early solo hits, reaching #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States.
Key Points About the Song:
Theme: The song has a deeply personal and introspective tone, exploring themes of emotional distance, regret, and the consequences of one’s actions in relationships. Sting has mentioned that the lyrics reflect the aftermath of a breakup and the process of trying to repair emotional damage. The "fortress" is a metaphor for barriers created around one's heart to protect against further pain.
Musical Style: Musically, the song blends rock, pop, and jazz influences, a hallmark of Sting’s early solo work. It features a prominent bass line and a melodic, smooth arrangement with intricate guitar and keyboard work.
Lyrics: The lyrics describe someone attempting to navigate through emotional minefields they’ve set up, symbolizing the walls we build around ourselves and the difficulties of breaking through to find reconciliation or peace.
Some key lines include: "And if I built this fortress around your heart, encircled you in trenches and barbed wire, then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm..."
Production: Like other songs on The Dream of the Blue Turtles, this track showcases the talents of top-notch jazz musicians that Sting enlisted for his solo debut, including saxophonist Branford Marsalis.
Critical Reception: The song was well-received and helped solidify Sting's status as a successful solo artist after his departure from The Police. Critics often praise its poetic lyrics and sophisticated musical arrangement.
"Fortress Around Your Heart" is seen as one of Sting's most reflective and emotionally complex songs, highlighting his songwriting prowess and ability to blend rock with more experimental sounds.
Sting: Fortress Around Your Heart Lyrics
Crumbling towers in beams of yellow light
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
the siege guns had been pounding through the night
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the fields I’d known
I recognized the walls that I once made
Had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I’d laid
And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire
Then I went off to fight some battle
That I’d invented inside my head
Away so long for years and years
You probably thought or even wished that I was dead
While the armies are all sleeping
Beneath that tattered flag we’d made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I’d laid
And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire
The prison has now become your home
a sentence you seem prepared to pay
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the lands I’d known
I recognized the fields where I once played
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I’d laid
And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire
