Sting is, without doubt, one of the most divisive figures in rock. While he’s enjoyed immense success as the frontman of The Police and as a solo artist, because of the experimental-adjacent music he’s famed for making, as well as his outlandish claims of seven-hour tantric sex odysseys, for decades, the Geordie musician has split opinion. His detractors dub him far too pretentious for his own good.
Yet, if you were the flaxen-haired former music teacher, you wouldn’t give two hoots about what people say. After all, he’s revered by his millions of fans across the globe, and has lined his coffers to an extent that musicians rarely do. Furthermore, for every prominent musician such as ex-Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who has openly criticised his work, he has a host of legendary fans, who are even more celebrated than he is for their musical talent.
As if enjoying chart-topping success and being celebrated for his bass-playing mastery wasn’t already enough for him to sleep easy, so is the fact that Sting can count Beatles pioneer, Paul McCartney as his most culturally significant fan. Famously, Macca once admitted that he wished he could have written Sting’s 1993 hit ‘Fields of Gold’. Ironically, though, to those who do not abide, this is one of the British musician’s worst efforts, and a prime example of just how pretentious the man and his art is.
Regardless, having Paul McCartney say he wishes he had written one of your songs is the kind of thing people dream about as children. After all, he and late Beatles songwriting partner, John Lennon, changed music and culture more profoundly than anyone will ever do. In return, this has also led to Sting naming the Paul McCartney track he wishes he could have written, and somewhat unsurprisingly, given his conceptual and experimental proclivities, it is 1966’s string-heavy Revolver classic, ‘Eleanor Rigby’.
Speaking to Clash in 2022, Sting said: “I could go on at length about McCartney songs I wish I’d written, he’s one of the reasons I became a songwriter myself. Lennon and McCartney were two working class grammar school kids from a Northern seaport, and they conquered the world with their songs, giving an entire generation permission to try and do the same.”
He concluded: “If I have to choose a Macca song, I’ll go with ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Compelling, mysterious, and utterly surprising!”
