B-side "Big Girls are Best" Format CD, cassette Studio HQ in Dublin, Ireland | Released 29 January 2001 Recorded 2000 | |
"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" is the second single from U2's 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. The song won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 2002. Bono has said the song was inspired by a fictional conversation with his friend Michael Hutchence about suicide.
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Writing and composition
"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" emerged while The Edge was working on a gospel-influenced chord progression on the piano.
U2's lead singer Bono wrote the song about the suicide of his close friend Michael Hutchence, lead singer of the band INXS. The song is written in the form of an argument about suicide in which Bono tries to convince Hutchence of the act's foolishness. Bono characterized the song as a fight between friends, which he felt guilty for never having with Hutchence. As Bono said in 2005, "It's a row between mates. You're kinda trying to wake them up out of an idea. In my case it's a row I didn't have while he was alive. I feel the biggest respect I could pay to him was not to write some stupid soppy song, so I wrote a really tough, nasty little number, slapping him around the head. And I'm sorry, but that's how it came out of me."
Mick Jagger and his daughter Elizabeth recorded backing vocals for the song, although these did not make the final mix.
Music videos
Two music videos were filmed for the song:
One is directed by Joseph Kahn, features an American football game between the "Flys" [sic] and the "Lemons" filmed at the Houston Astrodome, and contains various inside jokes and references to the band's past, such as the team names themselves - which were the titles of two U2 singles released in the 1990s. The video features a brief cameo in the beginning from John Madden, whose lines also feature several U2 references. The main part of the video shows a placekicker named Paul Hewson—Bono's real name—forced to re-live a field goal he missed that cost his team the game.
The other video, directed by Kevin Godley, shows Bono being thrown out of a van several times, as if "stuck in a moment". At the end of the video, the rest of the band helps him up.
Covers
Somalian-Canadian rapper K'naan performed the song live in July 2010 for iHeartRadio.
Release
"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" was released on 29 January 2001 in the UK, on 12 February 2001 in Australia, on 27 March in France, and on 30 October 2001 in Canada.
Formats and track listings
All music composed by U2.
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Personnel
B-sides
The "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" singles were backed with the following B-sides:
Alternative versions
There are three versions of this song: