Charly García, Sting

Original version:

(from the album “Kill Gil”, 2010)

On 15 October 1988, at the Estádio Monumental in Buenos Aires, the “Human Rights Now!” international tour came to a close. Organised by Amnesty International, the project featured names of the calibre of Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel e Stingas well as Tracy Chapmanwho had emerged that very summer, and the Senegalese star Youssou N’Dourwho had, after all, already collaborated with Gabriel. 

At every stop on the tour, the opening slot was handed to local artists: on 8 September, in Turin, for instance, it fell to Claudio Baglioniin what the media described as a disastrous experience for the singer, with objects thrown at the stage by a hostile crowd (the episode was actually blown out of proportion and involved only a handful of troublemakers in the front rows).

In Buenos Aires this role went to León Gieco, a militant folk singer-songwriter, and to Charly Garcíaat the time the biggest name on the Argentine scene, with over fifteen years of career behind him, first fronting legendary bands (Sui Generis, La Máquina de Hacer Pájaros, Serú Girán) and then as a solo artist (the only comparable artist would have been Luis Alberto Spinettawho, however, had a smaller commercial impact).

The show went down in history not only for its huge audience success (75,000 paying attendees and a radio and TV broadcast) but also for the friction between the organisers and García. Local singers were in fact given very little rehearsal time and limited technical resources, with the sound and lighting systems only running at full capacity once the international names arrived. For García this was an unacceptable affront, and rumour has it there was a furious row with the organisers backstage. Legend has it that Gabriel took his side, while tensions arose with Springsteen.

It was during this very event that García struck up a friendship with Sting, who would later listen to his records and be struck by their complexity and refinement.

37 years later, on 23 February 2025, the two met again backstage with Sting ahead of his concert in Buenos Aires, an encounter arranged by Martín Kierszenbaum and Dominic Miller, respectively the English singer's manager and guitarist, both of whom had lived in Argentina during their childhood.

Sting hadn't forgotten García, and so the two talked at length, arranging to meet for lunch the following day: that's where the idea of recording something together was born.

Some time later, back in London, Sting was contacted by García, who sent him a backing track to work on: Sting added his voice (the lead line in the chorus and the backing vocals) and entrusted the guitar parts to Miller, before sending the finished product back.

The song was originally titled "In The City That Never Sleeps" – a title that is both a quote from the lyrics of "New York, New York", the Liza Minnelli classic, and the English translation of how the people of Buenos Aires describe the Argentine capital, namely "la ciudad que nunca duerme" (the city that never sleeps) – and it was part of what has been called García's cursed album, "Kill Gil": on May 3, 2007, the record was leaked online ahead of its official release and without the artist's consent. The incident led him to cancel the release and rework the tracks, until the project finally saw the light of day on December 7, 2010. For reasons that have never been clarified, it remains the only García album absent from streaming services.

In its 2010 version, "In The City That Never Sleeps" is a rather emblematic track of the experimental García who took over starting with the album "Say No More" (1996), featuring chaotic arrangements shot through with ambient noise, voices talking in the background, metallic clangs, guitar distortions, dissonant orchestrations, loop and electronic hisses. It's no coincidence that from that point on, none of his songs would ever again enter the Argentine collective imagination (with the exception of "Influencia", which was, however, a cover of Todd Rundgren, however drastically reworked).

"In The City That Never Sleeps" follows the same recipe: a mechanical beat, a subtly unsettling bed of keyboards, background chatter, a melody split between clean and distorted vocals, guitars and bass processed and buried in the mix. Sung in English, rather unusual for an artist who has always been faithful to Spanish, the song goes largely unnoticed, much like the album as a whole.

García nevertheless felt it suited Sting's voice and reworked it accordingly for the occasion.

In an age of streaming services and quick-hit listening, the title was strategically shortened to “In The City,” while the instrumental backing brings order to the original chaos, revealing a pop potential that wasn't initially obvious. 

From an experimental pop, at times almost industrial in feel, the song shifts into a nocturnal, atmosphere-drenched sophisti-pop: the backbone is made up of vintage electric piano chords that immediately give off a yacht rock aftertaste, a straightforward midtempo drum pattern, and a bass line mixed right up front that seems more interested in melodic embellishment than rhythmic support – a role instead entrusted to the guitar's off-beat palm muting, at least in the first part of the verse, before the instrument switches to echoing chorus and delay effects. The result is an Eighties sound that perhaps looks back to García's own productions from that period, but modernised to the point of recalling the atmospheres of contemporary synthwave.

As the verse repeats, a simulated choir of angelic voices enters (the production notes credit the use of a Mellotron, though the sound in question seems to be of digital origin: it could therefore be samples, which by now simulate the Mellotron almost perfectly). García's voice delivers the melody with delicacy, in a shaky yet touching English, reflecting the tangible physical fragility brought on by a lifetime of smoking, drinking and drug abuse. 

The chorus suddenly shifts the mood, thanks to a spirited funk groove, with Sting singing both the lead line and the backing harmonies (whose jazzy flavour brings them closer to Steely Dan than to The Police). In the closing section the verse is backed by Sting's harmonies, weaving the two voices together.

Once the track was finished, the pair also shot a video, alternating footage between Buenos Aires (García) and New York (Sting and Miller): the two wander through the night in their respective cities, perfectly capturing the imagery evoked by the sound and the lyrics, which prove highly effective despite the basic English.

In short, a García with barely a breath left in him and confined to a wheelchair still managed to put out one of the most moving songs of 2025, proving his towering artistic stature and confirming himself as the greatest living Argentine musician. Sting's support was hugely important, both in giving the project international visibility and in once again showing his class outside of The Police.

 

Sting: “Charly is a great composer and I'm always struck by the way he manages to blend different styles into his songs. As a result, his arrangements are unpredictable and fresh.”