The Dream of the Blue Turtles
The Dream of the Blue Turtles is the first solo album by English musician Sting, released in the United States on 1 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, Best Jazz Instrumental Performance and Best Engineered Recording . Background and release. 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); the original uptempo arrangement of The Police song "Shadows in the Rain"; "We Work the Black Seam" (about the UK miners' strike of 1984–85); 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 Certifications and sales.