You have to give credit to U2 for daring to deviate from their winning formula now and again, even at the risk of alienating diehard fans. Even when they traveled down somewhat experimental musical avenues, the strength of their songwriting always shone.
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“Stay (Faraway So Close!)” arrived on their 1993 album Zooropa, which occasionally put the band out on a musical limb. But this song in particular showed that U2 could always reach back and deliver a heartfelt narrative to bring the focus back to the songwriting.
“Close” Call
Even from their earliest days, U2 showed a willingness to stray from what had previously worked for them, lest they become stagnant. They tried different collaborators and different methods of recording. Their motto seemed to be to give their fans what they didn’t realize they needed with each new record.
Perhaps their biggest swerve came with the album Achtung Baby in 1991. Worried that they’d become a little too earnest, the band introduced a bit of irony and grime to their pristine sound. The result was a resounding triumph that once again put them at the forefront of the rock and roll world.
Deciding to follow that path even further, they came back two years later with Zooropa. The LP dug deeper into the slightly avant-garde electronica that had lurked around the edges of Achtung Baby. But in the midst of all that, “Stay (Faraway So Close!)” stood out as an earthy ballad relying on the kind of soaring chorus that had epitomized albums like The Joshua Tree.
The song came from an unlikely combination of inspirations. The Edge had started writing the music based on chord progressions he had heard in Frank Sinatra songs. And Bono partially based the lyrics on themes found in the 1993 Wim Wenders movie Faraway, So Close!, a film in which the song appeared.
Exploring the Lyrics of “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)”
Bono writes the lyrics from the perspective of an angel, which is relevant to Wenders’ movie. But “Stay (Faraway, So Close!) works as the story of anyone who cares for someone very deeply but is helpless to stop their struggles.
The narrator watches the movements of a girl as she goes about her business, hitting convenience stores while “Dressed up like a car crash.” We’re not even out of the first verse before we find out that this girl is in an abusive relationship. “You say when he hits you, you don’t mind,” Bono sings. “Because when he hurts you, you feel alive.”
“A vampire or a victim,” he says by way of describing her. “It depends on who’s around.” Despite his efforts to reach her, he’s ultimately as ineffectual as a formless spirit. “And if you look, you look through me,” he admits. “And when you talk, you talk at me/And when I touch you, you don’t feel a thing.”
The girl gets lost in a world of television as she tries to mentally remove herself from her dreary existence. This benevolent watcher badly desires to help her, but he can’t seem to make an impact. “If I could stay, then the night would give you up,” he pleads.
In the final moments of the song, unable to fulfill his mission, the do-gooding narrator meets his demise. “Just the bang and the clatter,” he explains. “As an angel hits the ground.” U2’s “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” depicts a heartbreaking scenario where even angelic intentions can’t save someone from themselves.
Photo by Western Mail Archive/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
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