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Englishman In New York

"Englishman in New York"
StingEnglishmanInNewYork7InchSingleCover.jpg
Single by Sting
from the album ...Nothing Like the Sun
B-side "Ghost in the Strand"
Released February 1988
Genre
Length 4:25
Label A&M
Writer(s) Sting
Producer(s)
Sting singles chronology
"Be Still My Beating Heart"
(1988)
"Englishman in New York"
(1988)
"Fragile"
(1988)
...Nothing Like the Sun track listing
"Be Still My Beating Heart"
(2)
"Englishman in New York"
(3)
"History Will Teach Us Nothing"
(4)

"Englishman in New York" is a song by English artist Sting, from his second studio album ...Nothing Like the Sun, released in October 1987. Branford Marsalis played soprano saxophone on the track, while the drums were played by Manu Katché and the percussion by Mino Cinelu.

The single was released in February 1988 as the third single from the album, but only reached #51 on the UK Singles Chart. In the US, "Englishman in New York" peaked at #84 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in April 1988 and reached #32 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart that same month. However, the single was more successful in continental Europe, becoming a hit in several countries, reaching the Top 40 (and sometimes the Top 20) in France, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, etc. "Englishman in New York" was also a Top 20 hit in Ireland. In South Africa, it peaked at no. 9.

In 1990, just prior to the release of his third studio album The Soul Cages, Sting's record label licensed Dutch DJ and producer Ben Liebrand to remix "Englishman in New York" and subsequently released it as a single. The remix played around with the introduction and some of the instrumentation, but the essence of the song remained the same. The new version was commercially successful, reaching number 15 in the UK charts in mid-1990.

The "Englishman" in question is the famous eccentric and gay icon Quentin Crisp. Sting wrote the song not long after Crisp moved from London to an apartment in the Bowery in Manhattan. Crisp had remarked jokingly to the musician "that he looked forward to receiving his naturalization papers so that he could commit a crime and not be deported."


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Wikipedia

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