This song was written for the U2 album 'October' in 1981 and I remember reading an interview with Bono at the end of 1981 in a Dutch magazine where he explained what the song was about. U2 was not big in those days but they had received good reviews of their debut album 'boy' and because of that they had been touring mainland Europe. When he was in Berlin he visited the Wall. There he climbed in a looking tower and from there watched into East Berlin. It was there that he saw in the distance an east german border soldier about the same age as Bono was (about 19). This song describes the feeling he had when he tried to make contact with that soldier.
So 'the stranger' in the song is the soldier and 'the strange land' is East Germany.
Because U2 wasn't a very rich band in those days they did not always sleep in hotels and sometimes just slept in their small touring van where they had to lie on the floor. That explains the part about "don't mind sleeping on the floor".
This song was written for the U2 album 'October' in 1981 and I remember reading an interview with Bono at the end of 1981 in a Dutch magazine where he explained what the song was about. U2 was not big in those days but they had received good reviews of their debut album 'boy' and because of that they had been touring mainland Europe. When he was in Berlin he visited the Wall. There he climbed in a looking tower and from there watched into East Berlin. It was there that he saw in the distance an east german border soldier about the same age as Bono was (about 19). This song describes the feeling he had when he tried to make contact with that soldier. So 'the stranger' in the song is the soldier and 'the strange land' is East Germany. Because U2 wasn't a very rich band in those days they did not always sleep in hotels and sometimes just slept in their small touring van where they had to lie on the floor. That explains the part about "don't mind sleeping on the floor".