Sting

The Meaning of a Childhood Memory

Some time ago, Sting publicly shared this childhood memory: the Queen Mother, during a visit to his hometown, waved at him as her car passed by. Sting revealed that, at that moment, he desired a bigger life than what his town could offer—he wanted to be in that car, to be the one the crowd looked at, rather than just another face in the crowd.
One possible interpretation of that childhood memory could be this: if Sting imagined himself in the car, we might think that perhaps there could be, surprisingly, someone else hidden in that memory, and that someone would be: the car’s driver. For it would be strange to imagine the Queen Mother driving herself, and Sting couldn’t drive himself either because he was just a child at the time. Consequently, it’s possible to think that Sting unconsciously imagined an adult figure, probably, his own father, being there as the driver.
In this way, that memory would then express a possible internal conflict: Sting wanting to go his own way and lead his own life, and at the same time, his need for guidance, which would be expected from any child of his age at that time.