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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.

U2 - October

U2 - October Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: October
Released: 1981

October Lyrics

October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care

October
And kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on and on

Writer/s: MULLEN, EVANS, CLAYTON, HEWSON, (U2)
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

October Song Chart

This was the title track of the album which was named after the month it was released. Bono had the title in mind before writing the lyrics.

The lyrics reflect the Christian beliefs Bono, The Edge, and Larry Mullen as they were struggling as members of a devoutly religious group. They considered breaking up the band as they felt it may conflict with their faith.

The Edge played the piano part.

This was used on the soundtrack to the movie They Call It An Accident.

This was included as a hidden track on U2 greatest hits album The Best Of 1980-1990. It comes on about a minute after "All I Want Is You" on track 14.

U2 - Fire

U2 - Fire Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: October
Released: 1981

Fire Lyrics

Falling falling
The sun is burning black
Falling falling
It's beating on my back
With a fire
With a fire

Falling falling
The moon is running red
Falling falling
It's pulling me instead
With a fire
Fire

But there's a Fire inside
When I'm falling over
There's a fire in me
When I call out
I built a fire
I'm going home

Falling falling
The stars are falling down
Falling falling
They knock me to the ground
With a fire
Fire

But there's a fire inside
When I'm falling over
There's a fire in me
When I call out
There's a fire inside
When I'm falling over
I feel the fire
I'm going home

Writer/s: JONES, GARETH
Publisher: Chrysalis One Music
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Fire Song Chart

This song was released as a single three months before October came out. It was the first U2 song to chart, going to #35 in England.

U2 recorded this in the Bahamas in 1981 while on a break from their US tour. It was the only track on October not recorded in Dublin.

The lyrics contain apocalyptic, biblical themes. Bono has always worked a lot of religious imagery into his lyrics, but he's rarely this dire, singing about the "sun burning black" and "stars falling down."

U2 performed this on their first appearance on British TV show Top Of The Pops.

A distorted guitar segment of this appears at the end of some of the vinyl copies of Boy.

U2 - Gloria

Slowcore, Slowcore,
U2 - Gloria Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: October
Released: 1981

Gloria Lyrics

Gloria Song Chart

The title is Latin for "Glory," and the Latin refrain of "In Te Domine" means "In You Lord." (Did you know: Bono's stage name was originally Bono Vox, which is Latin for "Good Voice"). Like all but the most scholarly among us, Bono is not fluent in Latin. He did know some Latin words - mostly because of church - and with tape rolling he sang what came to him. The challenge then was to translate what he had sung, so he left the studio to find a Latin dictionary but found something better: a friend who had studied the language and could translate for him.

This is a spiritual song reflecting the Christian beliefs of Bono, The Edge, and Mullen. Early on, they almost broke up the band, believing it conflicted with their faith.

With lyrics like "I try to stand up, but I can't find my feet," Bono is supplicating to a higher power. He explained to Musician magazine in 1983: "I had this feeling of everything waiting on me, and I was just naked, nothing to offer. So I went through this process of wrenching what was inside myself outside of myself."

Some of Bono's lyrics and vocals were inspired by an album of Gregorian Chants that their manager, Paul McGuinness, had given him.

Adam Clayton played bass solo on this, something he rarely did.

Van Morrison released an unrelated song of the same name in 1964. A fellow Irishman who U2 admired, Morrison's "Gloria" is considered a classic.

U2 played this at concerts until their 1994 Zooropa tour.

Along with "Party Girl," this is one of 2 songs recorded on June 5, 1983 at the Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado for their live album Under A Blood Red Sky.

Bono (from the book Race Of Angels

): "I actually really like that lyric. It was written really quickly. I think it expresses the thing of language again, this thing of speaking in tongues, looking for a way out of language. 'I try to sing this song... I try to stand up but I can't find my feet.' And taking this Latin thing, this hymn thing. It's so outrageous at the end going to the full Latin whack. That still makes me smile. It's so wonderfully mad and epic and operatic. And of course Gloria is about a woman in the Van Morrison sense. Being an Irish band, you're conscious of that. And I think that what happened at that moment was very interesting: people saw that you could actually write about a woman in the spiritual sense and that you could write about God in the sexual sense. And that was a moment. Because before that there had been a line. That you can actually sing to God, but it might be a woman? Now, you can pretend it's about God, but not a woman! (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)