The Sting of Disappointment

In the opening months of 1996, I was twenty-three years old. My temp-to-perm job had just gone perm—my first real job. Now that my job was permanent, I was about to move out of my parents’ house and into my own apartment. And Sting was about to release a new album.

After 1993’s brilliant, creative, and occasionally crazy Ten Summoner’s Tales—which I must have listened to five hundred times—I was awash with anticipation for Sting’s next full-length album. Ten Summoner’s Tales had captured the same kind of energy that early Sting albums had, even though it wasn’t as jazz-tinged as The Dream of the Blue Turtles and Nothing Like the Sun. I was a music nerd, too, so I absolutely loved the odd Brubeck-like time signatures of “Seven Days” and “Saint Augustine in Hell.” So when Mercury Falling landed in record stores (remember those?) on Tuesday, March 8, 1996, as soon as my First Real Job let me go at five o’clock, I ran out and bought it. I ran home, put it in my CD player, and started listening to the opening strains of “The Hounds of Winter.”

And… I was a little let down. The energy definitely was more Soul Cages than the driving beats of Ten Summoner’s Tales. The chorus of Mercury’s opening track is, uh—well, it’s kind of sleepy.

OK, I thought to myself, it’s just the first song. I thought back to the first time I listened to The Soul Cages, which was ultimately a solid album, but it took many listens to appreciate it.

Next song: “I Hung My Head.” Like the second track on Ten Summoner’s Tales, it’s a ballad-style song about a Western-themed story in an odd time signature. That’s a little better than “The Hounds of Winter.” The odd time signature is interesting, though the song is definitely morose. The energy is still flagging—and the lyrics are certainly not very thematic or poetic. It’s about a guy who kills another guy, and he’s super sorry about...Read More