Stranger In Moscow

Album: HIStory (1995)
Charted: 4 91
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Jackson came up with this song while he was staying in Moscow during his Dangerous tour. He looked outside his hotel room and saw the crowds of fans who were enthralled with him, yet didn't know him in any meaningful sense of the word. He recalled a sea of faces of fans chanting and screaming, yet he felt all alone, as if he were the last person on the planet. That and the cold, bleak urban Moscow setting came together and inspired this song.
  • This was the last song by Jackson to make an impact on the charts. The lyrics tell a great deal about his life and state of mind at the time, but his career was slipping by the time this song came out, and it has since been overshadowed by his legal problems. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Mike - Santa Barbara, CA, for above 2
  • In November of 2009, Brad Buxer, A fellow music producer, had announced in the French Magazine Black and White that the 1993 video game Sonic The Hedgehog 3 nearly featured a soundtrack made by Jackson. Michael was displeased with the video game system's sound quality, and Buxer said that "He did not want to be associated with a product that devalued his music" and had his name removed from the final product. It was confirmed by Buxer within the magazine that he and Michael had worked on chords for the video game's end soundtrack, which sounds suspiciously similar to "Stranger in Moscow." >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Logan - Troy, MT

Comments: 8

  • Jake S from NigeriaThe song evokes how lonely he was at that time but not broke. It's MJ always remember that.
  • Eddie from SwedenIt wasn’t the last song to make an impact on the charts. You rock my world was the last song to really make an impact.
  • Kaz from C, OhThis song helped me get accepted into a performing arts school. I was only 11 playing this song. It was so beautiful yet sad. aww mike I wish i knew you. btw that song does song just like it.
  • Mike from Santa Barbara, CaOf all of Michael Jackson's songs, this is among his best. The video is also excellent, giving a sense of what life in Moscow is like for the ordinary people who live there.
  • Shauna from Atlatna, GaIn my opinion, this is a complete autobiographical song and only MJ new how to convey his feelings into such a beautiful song. I have never listened to an artist that sung a song with the emotion that he did. And the mucis choice is very haunting. Grest song MJ.
  • Alina from Brooklyn, NyYou can tell my the music video and the lyrics how much pain he felt. He is a great song writer because not alot of artist could of expressed their feelings through a song so well like Michael Jackson.
  • Brooke from London, United KingdomI think this is a beautiful song and every time I hear it, it reminds me of my own life and I get really emotional. I love it anyway.
  • Fulu from Limpopo, South Africamichael was expressing the feeling of loneliness through this song
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