Little Sting

“After Dark” is Elliot Sumner’s latest single. Who is Elliot Sumner, you ask? She (yes, she) is Gordon Sumner’s 24 year old daughter, also known as Coco. Dad is also known as Sting.

If I heard this song without knowing the artist’s name, I’d have thought that someone unearthed a previously unpublished song by the Police. I can’t get over how much like her daddy this girl sounds. The song is a new wave ditty straight out of the 80s, and darned if the bass in the video isn’t the iconic beaten-up bass that I’ve seen on stage at countless der Stingle concerts over the years. I doubt that she’s trying to cash in on her platinum DNA; my guess is that she genuinely wants to be a musician, and she may even have something to call her own … except that she sounds so much like the old man, one wonders how she can possibly stand on her own merit when the comparison is inevitable.

It’s confusing for a fan, as well. I like the song because it sounds like the Police. I like the vocal because it sounds like Sting. So am I a fan of the artist, or am I simply nostalgic for the early work of her father? Is her paternal bloodline a help or a hindrance? Could be that the next generation, the one that has no idea Sting ever played in a new wave band, will fall in love with her the way my generation fell with the Police, and that would be wonderful because she, like every other child of a superstar parent, deserves success in her own right. Tackling success in the same field takes some steely resolve, though. With traits so obviously inherited from a deity, I’d always wonder if I was famous because I was talented, or was the world just honouring my father?

Parents want their kids to be happy and successful … but it can be scary when a daughter is so much like her father.

Just ask mine.