Interpretation of Some Kind of Stranger.

[nick the stripper]

The Interpretation

The song opens with Von bitterly lamenting the slow breakdown of his band, what has mostly kept him driven and occupied throughout the eighties, giving his life a purpose.

The chorus which follows shows that Von is tired of examining life coldly and objectively, and that he longs to embrace life passionately, which the following verse also seems to suggest.

What follows is Von saying how hard and cruel and chaotic the world is, how cruel it is, but that if you search for a purpose, something he once had with his band, you might not mind too much.

So, in denial of the split-up of his band and his own meaningless mortality, he decides to embrace heroism - ala Ernest Becker’s “The Denial of Death� - transforming himself into some kind of Don Juan character, dealing with the world through woman, hence his decision to sleep with all the women in Berlin.

The Lyrics

And yes I believe in what we had
But words got in the way
And only yesterday
As I was leaving
Lord knows I've tried to say but I've
Heard a million conversations
Going where they've been before
Seen the way that careful lingers
Undecided at the door

And all I know for sure
All I know for real
Is knowing doesn't mean so much
When placed against the feeling
The heat inside
When bodies meet
When fingers touch

All my words are secondhand and
Useless in the face of this
Rationale and rhyme and reason
Pale beside a single kiss
And I've heard so many things I
Fail to understand at all
I'd settle anytime for
Unknown footsteps in the hall outside

And all I know for sure
All I know for real
Is knowing doesn't mean so much
When placed against the feeling
The heat inside
When bodies meet
When fingers touch

Because the world is cruel and
Promises are broken
Don't try to tell me
Anything don't try to tell me
You'll be true to me you know the
Real truth is never spoken
And I know the world is cold but
If you hold on tight to what you
Find you might not mind too much though
Even this must pass away and
Memories may last for years but
Names are just for souvenirs
Some kind of angel let me
Look into your eyes
Don't give me whys and wherefores
Reason or surprise
I don't care for words that don't belong
And I don't care what you're called
Tell me later if at all
I can wait a long long time
Before I hear another love song

Come here I think you're beautiful
My door is open wide
Some kind of angel come inside

Come here I think you're beautiful
I think you're beautiful beautiful
Some kind of angel come inside

[_emma_]

Now I agree with you, on this cold Sunday morning.
Last night around midnight I would've agreed with James Blast.

[nick the stripper]

Now I agree with you, on this cold Sunday morning.
Last night around midnight I would've agreed with James Blast.

What was Heir Blast's interpretation?

[Badlander]

Now I agree with you, on this cold Sunday morning.
Last night around midnight I would've agreed with James Blast.

What was Heir Blast's interpretation?

The end of a relationship, when love's gone and no one wants to admit it.
Now I think both James' and your interpretation make sense.

[James Blast]

no, I'm right

[Episkopos]

I still can't decide if it's addressed to an ex-Ms. Eldritch or to the prospective next Ms. Eldritch, or if they're the same person, or what. The vibe that something is breaking apart and that he needs something new is glaringly obvious, but the jury's out on what the somethings are. I believe Herr Blast's interpretation to be the standard, but this is Eldritch we're talking about; couldn't the song mean two or three things, or refer to the same state in however many different cases of affairs?

[Dark]

He's in love, but shy.

[James Blast]

@ Episkopos Woah! AFAIK I'm the only one to read that breakup situ into the lyrics

[eastmidswhizzkid]

IIRC SKOS was described by von as a celebration of casual sex; presumably for it's own sake, rather than as a cure for a broken heart.
personally i've always thought it was a glorified chat-up line (albeit very beautifully done, and without any bullshit).

gary marx only said he felt that the "careful lingers........." line was a snidey personal dig at him -i doubt the band break-up sub-text (if any) would be any more than just that.

[bushman*pm]

here i go again dragging the level down to mine but ive always interpreted this song as the shagging of countless groupies after gigs!
(and its one of the very, very few ive managed any interpretation whatsoever!)

[8.5]

yeah, i always thought it was "of course we didn't work out, let's just f**k other people" sort of thing. "Oh, I'm still sad about it, but freedom is fine!"

[Enid]

It's clearly one of the most beautiful love songs ever written.... If any man ever wrote me something as beautiful as that, I'd be all his...

[Episkopos]

@ Herr Blast: it just seems obvious to me, following on as it does from Nine While Nine which is so completely about the day you realise they're not there for you any more. Some Kind of Stranger has all that talk about broken promises and realising, in retrospect, that it was never going to work at all. It's Eldritch's way of saying "I'm sick of thinking about past failures, where's the next girl coming from?"

Of course, that could just be me projecting again, and nick the stripper makes a lot of good sense as well, but that's how I've always read the song. Beautiful, yes, but not terribly positive either. It sort of says "if I can't give up myself and love, I'm going to become a ruthless bastard..." or that's what it says to me, anyway.

[AmericanDream]

It's just occurred to me that SKOS is a long and beautiful way of saying, "f**k the pain away."

[Mariandrew]

Not sure this is a love song as the original poster also suspects.

The word "you" virtually does not occur. that would have been expected in a love song. Only at the very end "you are beautiful" is not about a person and love object, but there he is talking in desperation, losing himself in his imagination that in fact all he sees is an angel, a stranger. This imaginary escape is in contrast to the "I know" and the emphasis on knowledge he repeats in the text. Words like: "the world is cruel" "promises are broken" (passive tense) is about what is going on behind his back. It is a betrayal more generally, not by one person. They are ganging up against him and are alienating him. They don't get him. They don't understand his lyrics They belittle them and are only interested in empty words for lyrics and a meaningless love song. No wonder he seeks escape in his abode inviting some stranger in - an angel or anything - that might offer some alleviation from this betrayal and the ensuing hurt that comes from that.

[Pista]

It's a wedding march

[eastmidswhizzkid]

like i said before: Eldrithch (you know -the lyricist) said that this song was a celebration of casual sex. So you can read all the meaning you like into it but i'm tempted to take his word for it. Indeed.

[Mariandrew]

I believe Eldritch likes to have people guessing. He has never been completely direct when it comes to his lyrics. Why would he say it is about the band splitting up when his record label probably has forbidden him to do that plus he didnt want them to know what the song was about.

He is a lit grad and as such it would be normal to only give a bit of the interpretation or throw people off the scent.

[paint it black]

so the demo is probably a straight up love song. the finished thing, could be two voices, one logic one emotion and the battle that ensues. seems to me that there is a logical grouping of words which end one 'persons' thought patterns and the other comes in a juxtaposes that

and a chunk of it is prob robbed off Shakespeare - he even tells us that 'All my words are secondhand lol

[Landstreicher]

first I'd like to apologize for possible english mistakes, it is not my native language and I've come to speak it through internet mostly.

what is interesting (to me at least) in this song is that it's a literary rendition of the break-up, of the point where the present become past (so by definition, stranger to the subject).
in the first verses, the man (not necessarily Eldritch in my opinion, this song represents some very masculine - and bad- behaviours) is still talking to / at his ex-girlfriend, 'I believe in what we had / words got in the way', and his verbs subtly changes from past to imminent future as he then speaks to the girls he's substituting this now ended relationship with.

the very title of the song is significant, because "some kind of stranger" is nearly antithetical because either you know someone, either they are a stranger to you, it is not possible, this formulation leads to the idea that it is possible to blur the definition of "knowing somebody". In this context it designates as much the real strangers he's sleeping with whose names he does not even want to know as his ex-girlfriend who he now have to forget -but probably won't-.

Communication and meaning are central in this text, it is FULL of mentions of words, of sounds with meaning like the 'unknown footsteps' or the lovesong he doesn't want to hear anymore. He's asking his one night stands to "not try to tell [him] anything", he does not want to enter this game of communication and trying to fix things with words anymore because it has already failed him once (''promises are broken'). A break-up is some kind of treason, the brutal end to numerous promises, which now seems hollow and full of lies to our narrator, who as specified in the first verse "'believed". The text shows this really well in the second part of the lyrics (when he's no longer talking to his ex) : 'you know the real truth is never spoken', but precisely this section of the song is the real truth ! He's being disarmingly honnest about what he wants -casual and meaningless sex in hope of coping with loneliness- and what he looks for -no lies, no promises of truth, no communication because every word is deceitful-.

the 'I can wait a long long time before I hear another love song" is kind of a summary of the whole song, the guy does not want to go through all of the ritual again, he's almost incapable of doing so, and it's also the only mention of the word "love" in those lyrics that are full of obvious references to sex and physical contact.


Very clearly this is not really a song about love, rather a song about desperate search for oblivion, I even think that the shift from 'angel come inside" to "stranger come inside" in the final inprecations is the final piece of his previous real relationship. In the first few one night stands he have the women he's sleeping with are angels coming to save him from impending doom, but women come and go and the pain remains, in the end, only strangers are left.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

first I'd like to apologize for possible english mistakes, it is not my native language and I've come to speak it through internet mostly.

what is interesting (to me at least) in this song is that it's a literary rendition of the break-up, of the point where the present become past (so by definition, stranger to the subject).
in the first verses, the man (not necessarily Eldritch in my opinion, this song represents some very masculine - and bad- behaviours) is still talking to / at his ex-girlfriend, 'I believe in what we had / words got in the way', and his verbs subtly changes from past to imminent future as he then speaks to the girls he's substituting this now ended relationship with.

the very title of the song is significant, because "some kind of stranger" is nearly antithetical because either you know someone, either they are a stranger to you, it is not possible, this formulation leads to the idea that it is possible to blur the definition of "knowing somebody". In this context it designates as much the real strangers he's sleeping with whose names he does not even want to know as his ex-girlfriend who he now have to forget -but probably won't-.

Communication and meaning are central in this text, it is FULL of mentions of words, of sounds with meaning like the 'unknown footsteps' or the lovesong he doesn't want to hear anymore. He's asking his one night stands to "not try to tell [him] anything", he does not want to enter this game of communication and trying to fix things with words anymore because it has already failed him once (''promises are broken'). A break-up is some kind of treason, the brutal end to numerous promises, which now seems hollow and full of lies to our narrator, who as specified in the first verse "'believed". The text shows this really well in the second part of the lyrics (when he's no longer talking to his ex) : 'you know the real truth is never spoken', but precisely this section of the song is the real truth ! He's being disarmingly honnest about what he wants -casual and meaningless sex in hope of coping with loneliness- and what he looks for -no lies, no promises of truth, no communication because every word is deceitful-.

the 'I can wait a long long time before I hear another love song" is kind of a summary of the whole song, the guy does not want to go through all of the ritual again, he's almost incapable of doing so, and it's also the only mention of the word "love" in those lyrics that are full of obvious references to sex and physical contact.


Very clearly this is not really a song about love, rather a song about desperate search for oblivion, I even think that the shift from 'angel come inside" to "stranger come inside" in the final inprecations is the final piece of his previous real relationship. In the first few one night stands he have the women he's sleeping with are angels coming to save him from impending doom, but women come and go and the pain remains, in the end, only strangers are left.

no. hes talking to a girl who was never his girlfriend, who he was never emotionally attached to, who has never broken his heart or he hers, who he has simply fucked and moved on from. The song is a celebration of casual sex. Not love requited or unrequited, , not heartache, not commitment, not star-crossed love or unchained soul mates. Just fucking for fuckings sake. For the sheer carnal enjoyment of getting inside another humans knickers and making squelshy noises. That isnt my interpretation that is what Andrew Eldritch stated the song was about.

[Pista]

Hello @Landstreicher & welcome to

[eastmidswhizzkid]

Hello @Landstreicher & welcome to

WOT HE SAID^^