Stay (Faraway, So Close!) - Composition and Theme

Composition and Theme

"Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" runs for 4:58 (4 minutes, 58 seconds). According to Universal Music Publishing Group's sheet music published at Musicnotes.com, it is played in common time at a tempo of 86 beats per minute in the key of E♭ major. The vocals extend from a low note of B₃ to a high of D♯₇.

"The action happens in a curious dreamscape in which nothing seems certain except uncertainty itself."

Third Way contributor Graham Cray wrote that the song " more directly a culture which consists of a cacophony of voices and images but which has neither soul nor direction." Hot Press editor Niall Stokes noted that the lyrics were ambiguous in whether they took place in reality or fantasy, which he likened to the overarching theme of the album. Author David Kootnikoff believed that "the pop melody conceals the lyric's dark theme about a victim of physical abuse who reasons her pain away with the line 'When he hurts you, you feel alive'." Mark Brown of The Orange County Register described it as "the desperate tale of an abused woman with nowhere to go but back to her home". He compared it to U2's 1987 song "Running to Stand Still", saying "That same sort of descriptive but distanced narrative is what made so powerful."