By Annie Reuter
Sting will include a tribute to Prince on his upcoming album 57th & 9th, according to Rolling Stone.
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The Prince-inspired song, “50,000,” is a “gloomy ballad” written the week of Prince’s death. Sting came up with the melody for the song after reading the pop star’s obituary and recalling the times they played stadiums together.
“Mortality does sort of rear its head, particularly at my age–I’m 64,” he said. “It’s really a comment on how shocked we all are when one of our cultural icons dies: Prince, David [Bowie], Glenn Frey, Lemmy. They are our gods, in a way. So when they die, we have to question our own immortality. Even I, as a rock star, have to question my own. And the sort of bittersweet realization that hubris doesn’t mean anything in the end.”
Some of the songs on 57th & 9th touch on emigrating, including “Inshallah,” a story about refugees traveling to Europe. And the superstar says the album is pretty energetic.
“It’s rockier than anything I’ve done in a while,” he said. “This record is a sort of omnibus of everything that I do, but the flagship seems to be this energetic thing. I’m very happy to put up the mast and see how it goes.”
The album, named after the intersection Sting crosses each day to get to the studio, is scheduled for release later this year.
