The Sting song he said had “nothing original” to say
Any artist has had those moments when they start spinning their wheels a little too much. It might be fun trying to recapture the same kind of magic that you did on the first try, but if there’s a song that feels like someone cannibalising their old sound, it doesn’t take long for either the band, producer, or especially the fans to call them out on it.
Sting usually didn’t have to worry about falling into that category, but there were always a few times when he could admit that he wasn’t bringing anything new to the table.
Then again, making something new was the exact reason why he needed to leave The Police. There was no sense in him trying to make another version of ‘Every Breath You Take’, and since the friction between him and the rest of the band was reaching an all-time high, it was best for him to sit back and do whatever he wanted when he made an album like Dream of the Blue Turtles.
It was nice to hear something with a lot more musical depth sharing space on MTV with Poison and Madonna, but making music that sophisticated was always going to be a slippery slope. It’s nice to hear a jazzy turn in pop every once in a while, but it’s anyone’s guess whether the public will actually care, and by The Soul Cages, Sting remembered getting some pushback from people who couldn’t really relate to the kind of sorrowful music he wrote after losing his father.
Ten Summoner’s Tales was a much better return to form, but it’s not like he wasn’t going to catch flak there, either. This was right before the Britpop movement officially exploded, and while Phil Collins was the main target for people like Noel Gallagher, there were a few times when he took a handful of potshots at Sting as well for making soppy ballads like ‘Fields of Gold’. But ‘She’s Too Good For Me’ had much more energy than the public gave him credit for.
It’s not going to eclipse anything in The Police’s discography, but ‘She’s Too Good For Me’ is the kind of tune that most people had been waiting on since the early 1980s. The punk side of Sting’s sound was definitely muted this time, but the shuffling groove of everything made his music sound much more forceful again. But it’s not like Sting was getting ready to call it his favourite song by any stretch.
In fact, the reason why Sting liked the song so much is because it didn’t really break any new ground until the middle section, saying, “There’s nothing original about it. ‘She’s too good for me / She doesn’t want to drive my car.’ Please. The thing that makes it worthwhile is that it suddenly takes this musical twist. And the record company said, ‘God, that was a great radio record and then suddenly you ruin it.’ Well, yeah, but I wouldn’t have written it otherwise.”
But that musical turn is a lot more acceptable in the context of the record. Songs like ‘Nothing ‘Bout Me’ already made people sceptical with those strange jazz chords sprinkled in the mix, so hearing a shuffling song break down into something a lot more downtempo is an excellent way to tonepaint the frustration and sadness that comes from someone who thinks that their other half is out of their league.
Sting wasn’t really that kind of artist, anyway. A lot of the snide songs he would write back in The Police days always had a tongue-in-cheek humour to them, so what many see as him kneecapping himself was his way of keeping things interesting. The frontman could do a lot of things, but the last thing on his mind was to write the kind of meatheaded song that everyone else did.
