Reception
"Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" was critically acclaimed. Music journalist Sam Richards rated the song four stars out of five, calling it "a twinkling '90s alt. rock ballad - a cousin of Radiohead's "High and Dry" and Smashing Pumpkins' "1979" - that just about manages to keep a lid on its impulse to seek out the nearest clifftop." Hot Press editor Niall Stokes said "the performance is full of languorous beauty, a gentle understated kind of emotion that seems at odds with the disorientation in the lyrics." Billboard contributor Fred Bronson joked that it was an example of how songs named "Stay" reach the Hot 100, following similarly-named hits by Big Mountain, The Four Seasons, Shakespears Sister, and Jodeci. Robert Levine of Spin called it one of their best songs, saying "They're still obsessed with transcendence, whether it's the kind you find on a Joshua Tree bluff or a "Miami" dance floor. And framed that search in the most intimate of terms, even when they were too jaded to crawl out from under their lemon and look us in the eye."
Writing for Time, Josh Tyrangiel compared it to U2's earlier hits "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "One", saying "'Stay (Faraway, So Close!)'... the impossible — becoming meaningful to millions of people — precisely because beautifully vague." David Bauder of the Associated Press called it "the album's most beautiful song." Peter Howell of the Toronto Star said that it was "the most conventional U2 song on the album." The Orange County Register's Mark Brown noted "The casual guitar lines on 'Stay' infuse the song with a tension that perfectly suits the subject". The Bergen Record reviewer Barbara Jaeger called it an "achingly beautiful ballad". Writing for The Dallas Morning News, Manuel Mendoza said it was "absolutely gorgeous, with Bono's husky moaning evoking a warm yearning."
"Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" was nominated in the category Best Original Song at the 51st Golden Globe Awards. In 2005, Bono said "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" was "perhaps the greatest U2 song", saying it has the "most extraordinary contour of a melody. It's really quite sophisticated. The lyric never misses", and noting that they had "never turned 'Stay' into the single it deserved to be." He named it as one of his two favourite U2 songs, along with "Please". The Edge called it "the stand-out track on the record." Wenders described it as one of his favourite U2 songs.
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Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
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