“Fortress Around Your Heart” was the third single for Sting’s Dream of the Blue Turtles album. Although the song wasn’t successful in the UK, it was more successful in the USA where it stayed at #8 for 11 weeks.
Sting got the idea for the song in Barbadosa when he was playing medieval-sounding chor...
[Verse 1]
Under the ruins of a walled city
Crumbling towers and beams of yellow light
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
The siege guns had been pounding all through the night
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the fields I'd known
I recognized the walls that I'd once made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid
[Chorus]
And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire
[Verse 2]
Then I went off to fight some battle
That I'd invented inside my head
Away so long for years and years
You probably thought or even wished that I was dead
While the armies are all sleeping
Beneath the tattered flag we'd made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid
[Chorus]
And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire
[Verse 3]
This prison has now become your home
A sentence you seem prepared to pay
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the lands I'd known
I recognized the fields where I'd once played
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid
[Chorus]
And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire
Fortress Around Your Heart was written by Sting.
Fortress Around Your Heart was produced by Pete Smith & Sting.
Sting released Fortress Around Your Heart on Sat Jun 01 1985.