Russians (song)

"Russians"
If song was released as a single, include single cover art. Otherwise, include album cover artwork to replace the 45 rpm, if available.
Recorded by Sting
Released:	1985-06-01
Recorded:	March - April 1985
Length:	3:57
Album(s):	The Dream Of The Blue Turtles
Label(s):	A&M
Writer(s):	Sting
Producer(s):	Sting & Pete Smith
Studio(s):	Blue Wave Recording Studio
Released as single?	YES

"Russians" is a song written by Sting (using a Sergej Prokofiev tune) and recorded by Sting in 1985.

About the song

The myth about the creation of the song is this:

Scientist Kenny Schaffer has been a friend of Sting since The Police's earliest tours through the USA. On a Friday night Kenny took Sting up to his sky lab at the W. Averell Harriman Institute for the Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia. That's where they could use of one Kenny's inventions - a satellite Earth station - to watch Russian TV signals.

<<Sting showed up in a limousine with an attractive woman named Jenny, and Schaffer asked his friend Jonathan Sanders, who taught at the institute and lived nearby, to join them. The group spent hours talking and watching Soviet TV; owing to the time difference, it was mostly Saturday morning children’s programming out of Moscow. At 2 o’clock in the morning, they piled back into the limo and dropped Sting off at his hotel. Schaffer and Jenny kept partying into the wee hours. (Schaffer only realized later that the “Jenny” he’d been out all night with was Jennifer Beals, the actress who had just starred in Flashdance.)

“It’s like 10 o’clock now the next morning, and having gone to sleep little but late, there’s a knock at the door,” Schaffer told the podcast Amps & Axes. “It’s Sting’s equipment manager Danny Quatrochi, and he hands me a cassette that has a little label on it that says ‘Russians for Kenny,’ and I say, ‘Oh, I’ll play it later.’ He says, ‘You got to play it.’ As it turns out, what Sting had done when he got back to the hotel, he had a Synclavier [synthesizer] in his room, and he wrote the song ‘Russians,’ and I’m listening to it going, ‘Holy crow.’” The song, which borrows musically from the Lieutenant Kijé Suite by Sergei Prokofiev, is about Cold War tensions; its refrain is, “I hope the Russians love their children too.” Sting included the song on his first solo record, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, and later performed it at the Grammy Awards.>>

The reality of it probably goes like this:

Danny Quatrochi remembers that Sting wrote and recorded Russians in a rented studio at Shepperton Studios while he was shooting The Bride. That would be around September 1984. He certainly did a demo of it on 1985-01-04 while being on Montserrat. Kenny Schaffer's story with Sting AND Jennifer Beals being in New York probably belongs to some promotional activity for The Bride in New York some time in 1985 where he just assumed that Sting had written the song on the spot after their satellite TV session.

Personnel

This section needs more information.

Release History

Albums

Russians appears on the following album releases:

Cover art	Album title	Release date	Release country
	The Dream Of The Blue Turtles	1985-06-01	Country

Singles

CD Singles

Cover art	Catalog no.	Songs	Release date	Release country
	Catalog no.	"Song"(s)	YYYY-MM-DD	Country

7" Singles

Cover art	Catalog no.	A-side song/B-side song	Release date	Release country
	AM 292	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"	1985-MM-DD	England
	AM 390 061-7	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"	1985-MM-DD	France
	AM 390 061-7	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"	1985-MM-DD	Germany
	AM 390 061-7	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"	1985-MM-DD	The Netherlands
	AM 390 061-7	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"	1985-MM-DD	Italy
	AM 390 061-7	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"	1985-MM-DD	Portugal
	AMP-240	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"	1986-01-25	Japan
	AM-2799	"Russians"/"Russians"	1985-MM-DD	USA (promo)
	K-9871	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"	1986-MM-DD	Australia
	AM-8656 Memories	" Love Is The Seventh Wave"/"Russians"	1985-MM-DD	USA

12" Singles

Cover art	Catalog no.	A-side song(s)/B-side song(s)	Release date	Release country
	AM X-14271	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"/"I Burn For You" (live)	1985-MM-DD	Australia
	AMY 292	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"/"I Burn For You" (live)	1985-MM-DD	England
	AM 392 061-1	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"/"I Burn For You" (live)	1985-MM-DD	France
	SP-12164	"Russians"/"Russians"	1985-MM-DD	USA (promo)
	SP-12164	"Russians"/"Gabriel's Message"/"I Burn For You" (live)	1985-MM-DD	USA

Video

"SONG TITLE" appears on the following video and dvd releases:

Cover art	Video title	Release date	Release country
	Video or dvd title	YYYY-MM-DD	Country

Awards, nominations, and certifications

Awards

This section needs more information.

Year	Winner	Award	Category
YYYY	WINNER (album, song, producer, etc.)	AWARD (Grammy, People's Choice, etc.)	CATEGORY

Nominations

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Year	Nominee	Award	Category
YYYY	NOMINEE (album, song, producer, etc.)	AWARD (Grammy, People's Choice, etc.)	CATEGORY

Certifications

This section needs more information.

Country	Certifier	Classification	Certification
COUNTRY	CERTIFIER (RIAA, IFPI...)	CLASSIFICATION (Album, singles, foreign artist...)	CERTIFICATION (Gold, Platinum, Diamond...)

Lyrics

This is a sample set of lyrics
They should go here

If a song is an instrumental
Delete the Lyrics header 
and this section
as well

Quotations and trivia

UK ad:

Alternative and cover versions

This section needs more information.

See also

This section needs more information.

External links

• Kenny Schaffer story

References

source: Kenny Schaffer story, Danny Quatrochi