Music icon Sting is currently putting the finishing touches on his musical, 'The Last Ship', and revealed that it has been an incredibly taxing project. 

Along with debuting the stage production, he will release an album of the same name on September 24 that includes songs from the musical. Speaking to Billboard, he explained that he has learned a lot about how to write songs for musicals:

"The play itself will come out next year. We're still working on it, but it's pretty much done. It's an evolving thing; you find that you need a different kid of song or a character suddenly doing something different, so you have to change tact. And I've learned that even a good song doesn't guarantee that it will be included because unless it's moving the narrative forward they can't use the song. There's no time to hang fire while a song happens; the story has to be moved forward. It's fun, even though it's painful at times."

He added that nothing about the project has been easy although it has been very rewarding: "It's probably the most difficult thing I've ever done in terms of creativity because there's so many moving parts. It's been my work for the last three years. It's work I'm very, very proud of."

Sting will unveil the songs from 'The Last Ship' during a 10-night run at the Anspacher Theater in New York City starting from September 24 and on November 16 he will present the collection at Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater in Texas.