What does Perfect Strangers mean?

Deep Purple: Perfect Strangers Meaning

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Album cover for Perfect Strangers album cover

Song Released: 1985


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Perfect Strangers Lyrics

Can you remember remember my name
As I flow through your life
A thousand oceans I have flown
And cold spirits of ice
All my life
I am the echo of your past

I am returning the echo of a point in time
Distant faces shine
A thousand...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    astorian
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    Mar 9th 2012 !⃝

    Ian Gillan has explained that this song is about reincarnation. If you believe in reincarnation (I don't), you may have lived hundreds or thousands of lives before... but each of the persons you were in a previous life is a stranger to you.

    At most, from time to time, you may have a strange, vague sensation of having experienced something long ago, in a previous life. You may have a fleeting image or memory of one of the persons you once were, but you can never really know that person.

  2. anonymous
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    Nov 23rd !⃝

    At early age, with kind of a still poor english listening, I could only figure out the chorus, so it always felt it was about someone saying to its secret lover that it was all over... that if he or she was seeing talking on the wind, the other person should understand that they should pretend they dindt knew each other.

  3. anonymous
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    Jul 20th 2023 !⃝

    When the original line up of Deep Purple reunited in the early 80s to create the album Perfect Strangers, it was a song about them, reuniting. They were familiar, knew each other, but strangers from a long absence playing together. The original line up, the best line up. They were Perfect Strangers, but not the traditional meaning. It’s the Band, Perfect Strangers that allowed them to come together and make an outstanding album that still holds up today, in the same vein and quality of Machine Head. And what a great song. Find the symphony version with the Band sans Richie honoring the great John Lord.

  4. anonymous
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    Sep 2nd 2021 !⃝

    Even tho we were Perfect Strangers.It reminds me of a lost soul mate,or a past relationship gone sour.This song/cut was released on my b'day October 29

  5. anonymous
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    Oct 11th 2020 !⃝

    If you ever feel like you don't belong, that's because there is a trace of memory in your brain from a previous or maybe a future life.

  6. anonymous
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    May 23rd 2020 !⃝

    We all live millions of lives from many species and planets as a school for soul to cleanse and become god realized and then a channel for god in the lower worlds including earth, VARDANKAR.com

  7. anonymous
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    May 18th 2020 !⃝


    I am not sure at all what it means I know the strand of silver I have experienced it. But from the very moment I heard this song so many years ago it was like I had heard it many times. It’s words and melody resonates through my body and awakens something deep in my soul. I can’t explain it. Never liked Deep Purple that much but this song is like a long lost friend.

  8. anonymous
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    May 15th 2020 !⃝

    Reminds me of “Secret Separation” by the Fixx which also speaks to reincarnation. In that case the premise was the need to sever ties with loved ones in order open the way for new ones in this incarnation, treating this life as one of many Excursions.

  9. anonymous
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    Feb 20th 2020 !⃝

    Good against evil

  10. anonymous
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    Dec 24th 2019 !⃝

    It's about the Eternal Champion from the Michael Moorcock books. Plain and simple. And yes, that character is reincarnated a lot.

  11. anonymous
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    Apr 11th 2019 !⃝

    The only explanation that I can give about this is the experimentation that we all are forced and put through.

    Our souls via the "Silver in sky" which could be the representation of Gods in their flying soccers have created us and in hidden way are governing us and they keep bringing our souls over and over again on to this Earth. We may see our past or get a glimpse of it but we must remain perfect strangers and not to fully understand or even reject this process to make their show going on.

    Evidence mounts on this view. Such as scientific evidence that Human Genome is indeed a manipulated Ape gene, produced not by natural selection but by artificial selection sometimes around 200K years ago. Also Sumerians' Tablets
    by Zacharia Stichin points to manipulation of an animal by God and producing humans by them. Then they blew the should of one of their own into that body and it seems that should can travel over and over again into this avatar of human body. Rich Blackmore got it right and thats why he loves this song the most.

  12. anonymous
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    Feb 9th 2019 !⃝

    That the band led by Ian Gillan's amazing voice and song writing, could have sang the phone book and I think we would all know names in that place.sometimes a talented group of musical geniusess find one another and....magic is made!!

  13. anonymous
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    Dec 3rd 2012 !⃝

    The interpretations that others have posted about this song are exactly right. It is about "past-life" experiences and feeling that one is connecting somehow with that.

    One of the more notable lines is the line "a strand of silver hanging through the sky...touching more than you see."

    This is describing what is know as the "silver-cord" in astral projection, which some believe allows us to "enter into"...or "be part of"...something outside of our own bodies and selves. The "touching more than you see" line after that, is a way of relating that what is not "seen" doesn't always "not" exist.

    This song shows someone who has finally realized, through one way or another, that there is more to this life and more to reincarnation and the spirit world than they sometimes want to accept, but they cant deny the evidence that plagues them to rethink their belief. (your head is aching....with the dead of the night...)But in the end, its okay because the spirit, or old self, is telling us, "Your tears are lost in falling rain".
    A sort of "cleansing" and calming.

  14. anonymous
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    Jan 21st 2012 !⃝

    the song is about someone talking to its past and future, the events and going over the limits of time and space had changed him so much that the person had become a perfect stranger with himself.


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