[MUSIC: The Last Ship]
It's all there in the gospels, the Magdalene girl
Comes to pay her respects, but her mind is awhirl.
When she finds the tomb empty, the stone had been rolled,
no sign of a corpse in the dark and the cold.
So I was born 66 years ago in a little town
on the northeast coast of England.
The town was called Wallsend.
It was famous for building ships and if I looked down
towards the end of my street growing up, more often than not
the street would be blocked by a gigantic ship.
A friend of my father's left the town.
He left a guitar in our house, I must've been 7 at the time,
and I immediately fell on it like a man dying of thirst in the desert.
So I had this dream: I dreamt I'd become a musician,
I dreamt I would be a writer of songs, that I'd sing those songs
all over the world, I never imagined
I'd get an honorary degree from Brown, that would've been
[LAUGHTER and APPLAUSE]
that would've been beyond the realms of even my fantasy.
[MUSIC: Dead Man's Boots]
These dead men's boots know their way down the hill,
They can walk there themselves and they probably will.
They won't walk with me 'cos I'm off the other way,
I've had enough to hear, I'm gonna have my say.
When all you've got left is that cross on the wall?
I wan't nothin' from you, I want nothin' at all.
I'm done with all the arguments, there'll be no more disputes...
My success eventually came in the late '70s, early '80s, say,
which coincided with the demise of the shipyard,
which was the sole source of employment in my town.
The economic equations that informed policy
left out a very important factor, because what defined that town
was the work it did, its pride in itself, its dignity,
and the dignity of work.
And when that was taken away, I realized how important it is
for human beings to be appreciated in society.
So I started to write songs about my town
and in doing so it was almost as if I unlocked
something inside me that had been trapped for a long time.
The first thing I did was I wrote a list
of people I'd known who worked in the shipyard,
and from those names, I figured out
I was telling the story of what they did,
what their hopes were, what their dreams were,
their fears for the future...
[MUSIC: Shipyard]
Ah my name is Jackie White, I'm the foreman of the yard,
and ye don't mess with Jackie on this quayside.
I'm as hard as iron plate, woe betide ye if yr late,
When we have to push a boat out on the spring tide.
I remember, maybe it was 1960, and I'm nine years old
we all stood out there, lining the streets
with our little English flags our British flags, the Union Jack,
and then at the top of the hill suddenly a big, black
Rolls-Royce appears.
And inside is the Queen mother.
And I start waving my little flag at her
and she, somehow, catches my eye,
and she keeps looking, and she turns, and I wave
my flag even more furiously.
And I'm having this thing with the Queen mother,
and I feel for the first time that I've actually been seen.
I was infected with the idea that I didn't actually
belong in the street, I didn't belong in this house,
I certainly didn't want to end up in the shipyard.
I thought that I was entitled
to a bigger life.
To live in a larger world than the one I'd been offered.
I think that was another little twist in the engine
of my vision to escape.
[MUSIC: Message in a Bottle]
Just a castaway, an island lost at sea, oh
Another lonely day, with not one here but me, oh
More loneliness than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair, oh
Ok, I'll sing a line and you follow me
Sting: Sending out at an S.O.S.
Crowd: Sending out at an S.O.S.
Sting: Oh yeah! Providence!
Sending out at an S.O.S.
Crowd: Sending out at an S.O.S.
Sting: Sending ooh
Ooh
[APPLAUSE]