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Sting - If You Love Somebody Set Them Free

Sting - If You Love Somebody Set Them Free Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Dream of the Blue Turtles
Released: 1985

If You Love Somebody Set Them Free Lyrics

Free, free, set them free.
Free, free, set them free.
Free, free, set them free.

Free, free, set them free.
If you need somebody, call my name.
If you want someone, you can do the same.
If you want to keep something precious,
Got to lock it up and throw away the key.
You want to hold on to your possessions, don't even think about me.

If you love somebody, if you love someone,
If you love somebody, if you love someone set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them fee.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)

If it's a mirror you want just look into my eyes,
Or a whipping boy, someone to despise.
Or a pris'ner in the dark tied up in chains you just can't see
or a beast in a gilded cage; that's all some people ever want to be.

If you love somebody, if you love someone,
If you love somebody, if you love someone set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them fee.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)

You can't control an independent heart,
(Can't love what you can't keep)
Can't tear the one you love apart.
(Can't love what you can't keep)
Forever conditioned to believe that we can't live,
We can't live here and be happy with less.
With so many riches, so many souls,
With ev'rything we see that we want to possess.

If you need somebody, call my name.
If you want someone, you can do the same.
If you want to keep something precious,
Got to lock it up and throw away the key.
You want to hold on to your possessions, don't even think about me.

If you love somebody, if you love someone,
If you love somebody, if you love someone set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them fee.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)

(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them fee.
(Free, free, set them free.)
Set them free.
(Free, free, set them free.)

Writer/s: STING /
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

If You Love Somebody Set Them Free Song Chart

Written by Sting, this was the first single released from his solo debut album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles.

Sting wrote this in response to "Every Breath You Take," his monumental hit with The Police. He explained in Lyrics By Sting: "This song was as much a hymn to my newfound freedom as it was an antidote to the brooding issues of control and surveillance that haunted "Every Breath You Take." Perhaps the highest compliment you can pay to a partner is 'I don't own you - you're free.' If you were to try to possess them in the obvious way, you could never appreciate them in the way that really counts. There are too many prisons in the world already."

Sting assembled a group of jazz musicians, including bass player Darryl Jones (who went on to join The Rolling Stones in 1993), sax player Branford Marsalis, keyboardist Kenny Kirkland and drummer Omar Hakim, and headed to Barbados to record this album at Eddy Grant's studio.

The album's title was inspired by an odd dream Sting had when he first arrived in Barbados. He remembered in Lyrics By Sting: "I dreamed I was sitting in the walled garden behind my house in Hampstead, under a lilac tree on a well-manicured lawn, surrounded by beautiful rosebushes. Suddenly the bricks from the wall exploded into the garden and I turned to see the head of an enormous turtle emerging from the darkness, followed by four or five others. They were not only the size of a man, they were also blue and had an air of being immensely cool, like hepcats, insouciant and fearless. They didn't harm me but with an almost casual violence commenced to destroy my genteel English garden, digging up the lawn with their claws, chomping at the rosebushes, bulldozing the lilac tree. Total mayhem: I woke up to the sound of Branford in the room upstairs, riffing wildly on the tenor sax, followed by his unmistakable laughter."

The music video, directed by Godley and Creme, was shot on a soundstage in Paris.

This song reflected Sting's fear of commitment. He told Musician in 1985: "In relationships I feel very susceptible to entrapment. I see the bars go up and I try and escape, usually in the most violent and vicious way. I've destroyed one person totally; I've left people in a bloody pulp as I've felt the bars go up. If anything, 'Set Them Free' is a kind of warning. I'm not really into the idea of permanent relationships. I find that phoney, shallow and unrealistic in many ways. That's not to say the relationships I have are in any way inferior. I think they're more intense because of that belief."

Sting told Rolling Stone in 1985: "I've been through periods of wanting to be possessed, by my parents, my girlfriends. I don't want to be owned anymore."

This is one of several Sting songs to feature the word "love" in the title. Others include "Love is the Seventh Wave," "Sacred Love," and "Send Your Love."

In Daniel Rachel's book The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters, Sting spoke about the power of the word: "It's an easy word to say, love. It's shorthand for something that's very complex. There's a huge spectrum of meaning within the word love. What is love, from lust to devotion to worship? It's not something I'm very conscious of. I wasn't aware that I used the word love a lot."