The song Sting didn’t let anyone else play guitar on: “It’s been like that for years”
It’s a lot easier for most musicians to get a larger ego once they make it big. Although it’s nice to have that collaborative spirit whenever you make a record, it’s much more difficult when someone clearly has a vision for what their song should be and treats everyone else as tools to make that a reality. But for someone who has been on his own for as long as Sting has, he was always acutely aware of what everyone brought to the table, both in The Police and on his solo tours.
Because looking at the all-star lineups he put together for some of his biggest records, the bassist was never shy of showcasing the best players in the world. Dream of the Blue Turtles already had some assistance from some of the biggest names in jazz, but once he had a greater footing on what he wanted, some of his finest records have a who’s who of musical Olympians behind them, like Dominic Miller, Josh Freese, and Vinnie Colaiuta.
But Sting never needed a bunch of fine musicians behind him to wow a crowd. He had already been well-versed in music before he had even joined The Police, and when going through some of his greatest records, people would be just as spellbound by his music even if he was sitting on a stool and playing it on an acoustic guitar. And when he turned towards softer music, that approach wasn’t entirely out of the question.
By the time he started working on his late 1980s work, he had already begun venturing beyond the traditional jazz structures and moving into more sophisticated pop arrangements. There were still people insisting on calling his music things like “adult contemporary” or “easy listening”, but it’s not like ‘Fragile’ was something anyone could pull off on their own on their first few weeks on guitar.
According to Miller, Sting was always adamant about playing the guitar part on the tune the way he wanted, saying, “I meet a lot of fans who think that I played it. I tell Sting that I say I did. It really pisses him off! I didn’t even know Sting back then. So, his comeback is not letting me play it live. It’s been like that for years now, and I’m delegated to bass. He says I’m delegated to bass, but then I say, ‘Delegated means it’s not so difficult.’”
Considering how many people were still familiar with tunes like ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Every Breath You Take’, hearing Sting play this tune is like watching an entirely different artist. He might not have wanted to transition into the realm of classical music or anything, but his delicate touch on classical guitar is enough to give faint glimpses of the greats like Andrés Segovia. That is, if Segovia managed to have that cool baritone voice.
That’s not to say that Sting wanted the whole spotlight all the time. ‘Shape of My Heart’ was entirely Miller’s creation when it began as a fingerpicking exercise of a classical piece, and compared to what ‘Fragile’ sounded like, anyone trying to copy Miller’s take really needs to stretch their fingers to go anywhere close to the original.
A lot of Sting’s later material may have had moments that were difficult to play, but it was never about making something hard for the hell of it. Sting wanted to open different avenues for himself, but there was never a second that went by where he wasn’t thinking about what would work best for the song.
