Sumner's Tales: Sting talks...

"It was written during the post-9/11 confusion. I've found what's truly sacred in life's small things. My religion is simple things, like love for my family. Hopefully, the world can be changed through acts of kindness, acts of affection and love - the idea of doing normal, everyday things that actually have an effect down the line. Plant a tree, have a baby. Be kind. Because the opposite works as well. You can send your hatred to the future. And we all know the end result."
Parade, 9/2003

"I'm confident that we're all connected, we're all psychically connected, all of us and I'm just as responsible for what is going on in the world as anybody else. I also believe that reality can be created by incremental gestures, if you like, by a small act of kindness, of generosity, of affection, of warmth. Incrementally that build up to a certain kind of world. If everybody does that, just as easily as the small acts of meanness, jealousy, greed, aggression, violence, they also incrementally add up to the other kind of world. I think we have a responsibility to create the world we want. So this is my little mantra: send you love into the future is a very simple idea but it is something I believe."
Top Billing, 9/2003

"When I say, ''Send your love into the future'" - on the new album's first single, 'Send Your Love' - it isn't just about love. It's about the need to appreciate that the earth isn't here just for us but that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren would probably like for there to be woods they can walk in or water they can drink. This seems like common sense to me, but the current political dispensation is that these things are to be used for our generation, that our way of life is not negotiable - and, of course, it has to be."
Tracks, 2003

"Am I religious In my own way. I say in 'Send Your Love': 'there's no religion but sex and music'. That's a polemic statement. But if you look at it, 'religion' means to reconnect in the Latin. What reconnects us with the world of spirit are two things: sex and music. Generally, this is my church. My idea of a spirit realm is not something outside the cosmos, it is the cosmos."
The Independent, 10/2003

"I just felt that, in light of September 11th and its aftermath, religion had a lot to answer for. It's been used in a very narrow political sense to close down who we are. It's another term that needed to be redefined. So I asked myself, what are my religions Well, music is one, and the other is love - romantic love, sexual love. They're both ways of approaching eternity, infinity, the impossible things that we simply can't understand. They give us a window onto that - and God created them both!"
Sting.com, 9/2003

"I've always been fascinated by religion. Although I don't belong to a denomination, I regard myself as highly religious. I just felt, in light of Sept. 11 and the subsequent struggle, that religion had a lot to answer for. And religion needed in the future to be redefined. I think it's been used in a very narrow political sense of closing down who we are. In other words, if you belong to my religion, then you are family, if you don't then you're not family - them and us, black and white, good and evil. People imagining that God looks like they do. Well I don't think God's an Episcopalian or a Catholic or Islamic or Jewish. I think He, She or It is bigger than all of that. And religion needs to address that. It shouldn't be so petty. There has to be a larger thought. So I had to redefine religion for myself. What are my religions Music is one of my religions, where I can sense the infinite. And the other is love. Sexual love, romantic love. My relationship with my wife, for example, I regard as a devotional practice. It's a way of approaching eternity, infinity, the impossible things that we simply can't understand. Love gives us a window onto that. So the album is really about that - defining religion. I say a very polemic statement: "There's no religion but sex and music." This is my little polemic. It might embarrass some people, it might insult some people. I don't mean it to. I'm just saying for me this is what my religion is. God created both."
Grammy Magazine, 2004

'Send Your Love' was the first single from 2003's 'Sacred Love' album and there are numerous remixes of the track available. Opening with a flurry of Flamenco guitar courtesy of Vicente Amigo and castanets from Valerie Denys before breaking into a bassline that just makes you want get up and dance.
Despite the Spanish influence of the intro, the song has a decidedly middle-east feel in a similar vein to 'Desert Rose' and some great guitar from Dominic Miller.

The UK single also featured an edited version of the Dave Aude Remix, the video CD-ROM and a mix of 'Moon Over Bourbon Street' by Cornelius.