Sting 5: Ten Summoner’s Tales

A fairly quick turnaround for Sting resulted in Ten Summoner’s Tales, a title designed to sound deeper than it is. The formula has fallen into place at this point—well-played songs, with just a touch of jazz experimentation and Celtic influences, nicely produced for listening closely or playing during cocktail parties, for the people who still have them.

The opening track was the first single, and “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” is catchy without being too deep. Then, “Love Is Stronger Than Justice” tells a fairly predictable story over a distracting 7/4 beat (hence the subtitle “The Munificent Seven”) with in incongruous chorus with pedal steel. “Fields Of Gold” was an even bigger hit, and two decades on we’re still confused on what the fields of barley have to do with the ones with gold. “Heavy Cloud No Rain” doesn’t bother with many chord changes until after the guitar solo, making it something of a revision of “We’ll Be Together”. A similar approach is taken on “She’s Too Good For Me”, which also takes a detour mid-track. Perhaps it would have been too obvious to put “Seven Days” in 7/4 as well; instead, it’s in 5/8, and sails along smoothly, though for some reason he opts to quote from “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (again).

To confound all expectations, the 7/4 meter returns for “Saint Augustine In Hell”, another highly catchy tune interrupted by a “break”. “It’s Probably Me” was first heard in a recording with Eric Clapton and David Sanborn for a Lethal Weapon movie; the version here is a different recording in a smooth jazz mood. Guitarist Dominic Miller gets co-writing credit for “Shape Of My Heart”, which is a musical cousin to “Fragile”. The sea-faring theme of the previous album pervades “Something The Boy Said”, another tale of a mysterious journey. To fit in with the album title, “Nothin’ ‘Bout Me” is called the epilogue; meanwhile, everybody but North America got a twelfth song, “Everybody Laughed But You”, which was added to the streaming version of the album several years after everyone bought it already. (In time for the album’s 30th anniversary, an “expanded edition” was made available digitally, which included that tune plus seven remixes slash radio edits, three live versions, the original soundtrack version of “It’s Probably Me”, live covers of “Purple Haze” and “Ain’t No Sunshine”, plus a remake of “We Work The Black Seam” and the B-side “January Stars” aka “Everybody Laughed But You” with different lyrics.)

Ten Summoner’s Tales is a little repetitive, relying too much on the same rhythms and keyboards, but it’s never really annoying. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of substance under the decorations, elaborate as they are. He did have a hand in bringing the chromatic harmonica back into vogue, so there’s that.

Sting Ten Summoner’s Tales (1993)—3