U2 Songs - Stranger In A Strange Land Lyrics

U2 - Stranger In A Strange Land

U2 - Stranger In A Strange Land Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: October
Released: 1981

Stranger In A Strange Land Lyrics

Stranger
Stranger in a strange land
He looked at me like I
Was the one who should run
We asked him to smile for a photograph
Waited a while to see if we could make him laugh

A soldier asked for a cigarette
His smiling face I can't forget
He looked like you across the street
But that's a long way here

And I wish you were here
And I wish you were here

Stranger
A stranger in a strange land
He look at me like I
Was the one who should run
I watched as he watched us
Get back on the bus
I watched the way it was
The way it was when he was with us

And I really don't mind
Sleeping on the floor
But I couldn't sleep after what I saw
I wrote this letter to tell you
The way I feel

I wish you were here
I wish you were here
To see what I could see
To hear
And I wish you were here

Writer/s: ADAM CLAYTON, DAVE EVANS, PAUL HEWSON, LARRY MULLEN
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Stranger In A Strange Land Song Chart

The title was taken from a 1961 Robert Heinlein book of the same name about a boy who comes to Earth after being raised on Mars.

This song was inspired by an encounter the band had while entering Berlin from East Germany while on their Boy tour in February 1981. At the time, East Germany and West Germany were separate countries, and Berlin was divided by the Berlin wall. U2 was sleeping in the back of their tour van when it pulled up to the crossing. The guards, understandably suspicious, made the driver open the back to see what they were smuggling, only to discover a sleepy rock band.

Bono was struck by how young the guards were, and imagined what their lives were like. He wrote the lyric bases on this interaction.

U2 never performed this live.