Sting – Shape Of My Heart

Four chords at Lake House, then a walk with the headphones on

Dominic Miller and Sting kept a Wednesday habit at Lake House, the Elizabethan house in Wiltshire where Ten Summoner’s Tales was recorded between June and December 1992. One week Miller arrived with a small guitar figure: sixth chords in the manner of a Chopin warm-up, the third of the chord left out so the harmony stayed open. He has said he was only loosening his hands in front of the fire. Sting heard a song. They went into the house studio, put a drum machine up, and cut a sketch the same morning. Miller later recalled that the piece was written and recorded in a day, just the two of them and an acoustic guitar.

The lyric came on the walk. Sting took the headphones into the garden and asked what story those chords were telling. He landed on a card player who is not chasing the pot. The lyric uses the card suits as its images: spades as swords, clubs as weapons, diamonds as money, and none of them as the shape of the heart. On the album version the sketch is filled out. Larry Adler, then in his eighties, plays chromatic harmonica. Dominic Miller’s nylon-string guitar stays at the front. Vinnie Colaiuta is the drummer across Ten Summoner’s Tales, with David Sancious on keyboards. Sting plays bass and sings. He and Hugh Padgham produced. Padgham mixed the album at The Town House in London, and Bob Ludwig mastered it in New York.

A&M released Ten Summoner’s Tales in March 1993. Shape of My Heart is the fifth single, out on 23 August 1993, with Fragilidad on the B-side. The clip, directed by Doug Nichol, was filmed back at Lake House and premiered that September. The single reached UK number 57 for one week, on 4 September 1993, and did not chart in the United States. It still showed up elsewhere. It sits inside the 1993 film Three of Hearts and plays over the end credits of Luc Besson’s Léon in 1994. On the record the tempo stays unhurried, the guitar dry, the voice close. A regular pop chorus never really arrives.