The Dream of the Blue Turtles is the debut solo album by English musician Sting, released in June 1985. The album reached number three on the UK Albums Chart and number two on the US Billboard 200.
Five singles were released from the album: "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free", "Fortress Around Your Heart", "Russians", "Moon Over Bourbon Street", and "Love Is the Seventh Wave". The album earned Grammy nominations for Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Best Engineered Recording; the instrumental title track was nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.
Background and release
Sting initially worked on tracks for his debut solo album with producers Torch Song: William Orbit, Laurie Mayer and Grant Gilbert. These sessions were more synth-driven and 'electrofunk' in nature than what eventually was recorded and released; Sting eventually decided against this direction, and instead decided to pursue more jazz-oriented music. The initial 1984 Torch Song sessions remain unreleased.
The album is named after a dream that Sting had.
Although the single "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" reached No. 3 in the US, it only reached 26 in the UK, where the album's track "Russians" (about Cold War nuclear anxieties, which had peaked in the 1980s) proved more popular.
In the UK the album was kept off No. 1 in the week of its release by Marillion's Misplaced Childhood and Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen occupying the top two places. However, in the US, the album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
The film Bring On the Night documents some of the recording work that produced this album, as well as the subsequent tour.
Songs
The songs include "Children's Crusade" (paralleling the destruction of the younger generation in World War I to the devastation brought about by heroin addiction in modern-day London); a new, re-recorded version of the Police song "Shadows in the Rain" (featuring the original uptempo arrangement); "We Work the Black Seam" (about the UK miners' strike of 1984–85, and musically based on "Savage Beast", a song dating back to Sting's days in Last Exit); and "Moon Over Bourbon Street", a song inspired by Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire and on which he plays double bass. "Consider Me Gone" references the first quatrain of Shakespeare's Sonnet 35.
Accolades
Grammy Awards
|+Grammy Award nominations for The Dream of the Blue Turtles
| style="width:35px; text-align:center;" rowspan="2"|1986 || rowspan="2"| The Dream of the Blue Turtles || Album of the Year || |- | Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male|| |-
Track listing
Singles
"If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" (1985) #3 US Hot 100, #26 UK Singles Chart
"Russians" (1985) #16 US Hot 100, #12 UK Singles Chart
"Fortress Around Your Heart" (1985) #8 US Hot 100, #49 UK Singles Chart
"Love Is the Seventh Wave" (1985) #17 US Hot 100, #41 UK Singles Chart
"Moon Over Bourbon Street" (1986) #44 UK Singles Chart – with a B-side of "The Ballad of Mack the Knife"
Personnel
Sting – vocals, guitars, double bass on (9), arrangements
Darryl Jones – bass guitar
Kenny Kirkland – keyboards
Branford Marsalis – soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, clarinet, percussion
Dominic Muldowney – additional arrangements (10) Dolette McDonald – backing vocals Janice Pendarvis – backing vocals Omar Hakim – drums
Additional personnel
Danny Quatrochi – Synclavier, backing vocals
Robert Ashworth – guitars
Eddy Grant – congas (7) Frank Opolko – trombone (2) Pete Smith – backing vocals Elliot Jones – backing vocals Jane Alexander – backing vocals Vic Garbarini – backing vocals Pamela Quinlan – backing vocals The Nannies Chorus – backing vocals Rosemary Purt – backing vocals Stephanie Crewdson – backing vocals Joe Sumner – backing vocals Kate Sumner – backing vocals Michael Sumner – backing vocals
Production
Pete Smith – producer, engineer
Sting – producer
Jim Scott – engineer
Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York, NY). Max Vadukul – photography Danny Quatrochi – photography Michael Ross – art direction, design Richard Frankel – art direction, design