Synopsis

Shot in stark black and white, the video presents New York as a restless, elegant backdrop for Sting's portrait of an outsider finding his place in the city. Sting and his musicians perform among streets, interiors, and nighttime urban scenes, while Quentin Crisp appears as the song's real-life inspiration. Branford Marsalis receives prominent attention on saxophone, adding to the video's jazz-club atmosphere. The result is less a conventional narrative than a stylish character study of individuality and urban identity.

Factoids & Trivia

• Sting wrote the song about Quentin Crisp, the English writer and gay cultural icon who moved from London to New York in the late 1970s.

• Crisp appears in the video, linking the song's lyrics directly to the person who inspired them.

• The video's black-and-white photography gives it a documentary-like quality and emphasizes the contrast between Crisp's highly distinctive persona and the movement of everyday New York.

• Branford Marsalis is prominently featured on soprano saxophone, reflecting the song's jazz influence and giving the performance footage much of its visual focus.

• The original video ended with an elderly male voice reflecting on a wish to meet everybody in the world before dying. The commonly circulated official version later omitted this closing voice-over.

• "Englishman In New York" first appeared on Sting's 1987 album "...Nothing Like The Sun" and was released as a single in February 1988.

• Despite becoming one of Sting's signature songs, the original single failed to reach the UK Top 50.

• Sting has said that he wrote the song in his West Broadway apartment in New York City's SoHo in 1987.

• The song became a long-running fixture of Sting's live performances, even though its initial chart performance was modest.