The Police recently unveiled Sting's demo of the hit song "King of Pain."
This release comes just before the much-anticipated 40th-anniversary box set of their album "Synchronicity," due next month. The demo features Sting's poignant vocals, backed by what appears to be a drum machine, as he sings about his separation from his first wife, actress Frances Tomelty.
Talking about the song's creation, Sting said, "I conjured up symbols of pain and related them to my soul. A black spot on the sun struck me as being a very painful image, and I felt that was my soul up there on the sun."
This projection of personal state into symbolic representation is, according to Sting, what poetry is all about. The song "King of Pain" resonated with listeners, peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. The album "Synchronicity" received significant recognition, being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009 and selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2023.
The 40th-anniversary edition of "Synchronicity" will be released on July 26th. The deluxe edition contains 55 unreleased songs.
[Source: Classic Hits Today]