Fortress Around Your Heart

"Fortress Around Your Heart"
UK 12-inch vinyl single
Single by Sting
from the album The Dream of the Blue Turtles
B-side	Shadows in the Rain (Europe) Consider Me Gone (live) (USA)
Released	August 1985 (US) [1] 4 October 1985 (UK) [2]
Genre	Sophisti-pop [3] rock new wave
Length	4:48
Label	A&M
Songwriter	Sting
Producers	Sting Peter Smith
Sting singles chronology
"Love Is the Seventh Wave" (1985) "Fortress Around Your Heart" (1985) "Russians" (1985)
Music video
"Sting - Fortress Around Your Heart (Option Two)" on YouTube

"Fortress Around Your Heart" is a single released from Sting's 1985 debut solo studio album The Dream of the Blue Turtles . It was released as the album's second single in the US and the second single in the UK, where it peaked at No. 8 and No. 49. The song also reached No. 1 for two weeks on the US Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart, becoming his second consecutive #1 hit on this chart. ^[4]

The song was later included on the U.S. release of the Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984–1994 compilation album.

Background

Sting wrote "Fortress Around Your Heart" in a Barbados recording studio in 1985. He had been working with modal chords on a guitar, which he thought sounded "kind of medieval". He then wrote lyrics referencing sieges, castle walls, and armies as a metaphor for a struggling romantic relationship. ^[5] In a Musician magazine interview later that year, Sting said:

"Fortress" is about appeasement, about trying to bridge the gaps between individuals. The central image is a minefield that you've laid around this other person to try and protect them. Then you realize that you have to walk back through it. I think it's one of the best choruses I've ever written. ^[6]

During one of Sting's first performances of the song in concert in Paris, his crew lowered a tiny fortress onto the stage in a parody of the similar Stonehenge scene from the film This Is Spinal Tap . ^[7]

Reception

Billboard said that the single is "challenging, complex and rather difficult," with "mysterious poetic imagery" and a melody that is "more recitative than hook." ^[8] Cash Box said that the song illustrated Sting's "genius as songwriter," although it is "tinged with melancholy" and "less jazzy and more Police-like than Sting's previous US single, "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free." ^[9]

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart (1985)	Peak position
Australia (Kent Music Report) [10]	72
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders) [11]	40
Canada Top Singles ( RPM ) [12]	20
Netherlands (Single Top 100) [13]	26
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ) [14]	13
UK Singles (OCC) [15]	49
US Billboard Hot 100 [16]	8
US Mainstream Rock ( Billboard ) [17]	1
US Adult Contemporary ( Billboard ) [18]	32

Year-end

Year-end chart (1985)	Rank
US Top Pop Singles (Billboard) [19]	95

References

1. Strong, Martin Charles (1995). The Great Rock Discography. Canongate Press. p. 792. ISBN   9780862415419.
2. "Music Week" (PDF). p. 12.
3. Gibbs, Ryan (15 November 2022). "An introduction to Sophisti-pop". In Between Drafts. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
4. Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 8th Edition (Billboard Publications), page 606.
5. "Fortress Around Your Heart, 12"". Sting.com. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
6. Garbarini, Vic (August 1985). "Sting Under the Gun" (PDF). Musician . p. 33. Retrieved 20 November 2025– via World Radio History.
7. Hirshey, Gerri. "Sting feels the burn", Rolling Stone , September 1985.
8. "Reviews". Billboard. 17 August 1985. p. 66. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
9. "Single Releases" (PDF). Cash Box. 24 August 1985. p. 9. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
10. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 295. ISBN   0-646-11917-6. N.B. The Kent Report chart was licensed by ARIA between mid-1983 and 12 June 1988.
11. "Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
12. Canada Top Singles RPM
13. "Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
14. "Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart". Top 40 Singles. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
15. "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
16. "Sting Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
17. "Sting Chart History (Mainstream Rock)". Billboard. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
18. "Sting Chart History (Adult Contemporary)". Billboard. Retrieved 29 September 2025.
19. "1985 The Year in Music & Video: Top Pop Singles". Billboard. Vol. 97, no. 52. 28 December 1985. p. T-21.