The Last Ship 2025

The ship of Theseus is a classic paradox of thought that asks whether an object is truly the same after all its component pieces have been replaced. That's not exactly the case for Sting's musical "The Last Ship", but he is once again revisiting the song score he's tinkered with several times over the last decade in a new expanded edition due this winter.

Coming to 2 CD, 2 LP and digital on December 5th, 2025, ahead of a new series of worldwide performances, this new edition of the singer songwriter's 2013 concept album take on "The Last Ship" offers 20 tracks from the original album release and cast recording, plus 5 new recordings, all resequenced to better reflect the current narrative of the tale. Those new tracks are a re-recording of the song "Shipyard", with new vocals by cast member Joe Caffrey alongside those from Jo Lawry and AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson, duets with operatic soprano Renée Fleming on "Ship of State", and another principal cast member, Frances McNamee on "If You Ever See Me Talking to a Sailor", the outtake "O'Brien's Hymn", and a new take on "Island Of Souls", which opens not only the show, but Sting's thematically similar 1991 studio album "The Soul Cages".

The Last Ship was conceived by Sting as a soul debt to the shipbuilding community of Wallsend in Newcastle Upon Tyne, where the young Gordon Sumner and his family grew up and his father labored. "The Soul Cages", which featured Sting's biggest US solo hit in "All This Time", was the ex-Police frontman's 1st meditation on the subject, recorded after the death of his father.

"The Last Ship" album, released well before the show made it to Broadway, featured a rough arrangement of the song score. When the production finally landed in New York, less than a dozen of the songs on the album had made it into the staging, augmented by new compositions and relevant songs from Sting's back catalogue, "Soul Cages" tracks "Island of Souls" and "All This Time", the 1994 single "When We Dance", the "Brand New Day" deep cut "Ghost Story". "The Last Ship's" Broadway run was brief, starting in the fall of 2014 and ending early the following year, during which, in its last weeks, Sting himself stepped into the supporting role of Jackie White, originally portrayed on the album and the stage by British crooner Jimmy Nail, though its score and orchestrations were both nominated for Tony Awards. The show finally found its sea legs on tour, with a revised book by director Lorne Campbell and a resequenced run of songs. Sting participated in another tour of North America just before the covid 19 pandemic, and will do so again in Paris, Amsterdam and Brisbane during engagements in 2026.