Sting "If You Love Someone Set Them Free"

Let me ask you a question . . . when you were in that final English class in college (or High School), and you had that big paper to write . . . what did you write about?

Can you remember the subject?

Could you quote a line?

Could you recite any of it from memory?

I think about this when I think about artists who've been around for a long, long time. The Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams and R.E.M. have been sufficiently mocked for not remembering the lyrics to their songs, mocked for using lyric sheets on stage.

But shit, can you do your monologue from that play you were in 20 years ago?

It is maybe too tall an expectation to have from an artist, who, believe it or not, is only human.

Then again, it is kind of fun to pick on them, and be a little shocked at how they could lose touch with the art that made them famous.

I saw this documentary a couple of weeks back, and in one scene, Sting has been convinced to sing a Kinks song on camera, with the interviewer.

The song is "Set Me Free" and when they have finished, after repeating the songs refrain a number of times, Sting gets a kind of foggy look on his face and says something like, "I think I stole some of that tune for my song, uh . . ."

He then struggles to name the song, his song, "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free."

He free associates the words he half-remembers, "Set You Free, Someone Set Them Free, If You Set Someone Free . . ." before finally pulling the title out.

So feel free to mock him. And just be glad that you aren't being asked to recite that poem you wrote for English Lit.