"Stranger in a Strange Land" is a song by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden, released as the second single from their sixth studio album, Somewhere in Time (1986). The song is unrelated to Robert A. Heinlein's novel by the same name. Synopsis The lyrics are about an Arctic explorer who dies and is frozen in the ice. After a hundred years his body is found preserved by other people exploring there. Adrian Smith was inspired to write about this song after talking to an explorer who had a similar experience of discovering a frozen body. The guitar solo in "Stranger in a Strange Land" is played by Smith. In a 2020 interview with eonmusic, the guitarist said that it was one of the first Iron Maiden songs that gave him "space to play in", citing its mid-paced tempo as the reason why; "a lot of the Maiden stuff up until then had been very fast, and aggressive, and heavy, but that actually allowed me a little bit of space to stretch out a bit", he said. The song is one of only five Iron Maiden songs to fade out; the others being "The Prophecy" from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, "Hell on Earth" from Senjutsu, "Women in Uniform", a single included on some pressings of Killers, and "Kill Me Ce Soir", a 1990 B-side. The lyrics "brave new world" were also present in Iron Maiden's 2000 studio release, Brave New World. Cover details Eddie's appearance on the single cover is an homage to the Clint Eastwood character "Man with No Name", although it can also be seen as a mixture of Rick Deckard from Blade Runner and the "Man with No Name". This version of Eddie would later be used in the Camp Chaos music video for "Run to the Hills". In the top-right corner of the cover (slightly right of Eddie's lit match), the time on the clock appears as "11:58". This is a reference to an earlier Iron Maiden single, "2 Minutes to Midnight". Several cards can be seen falling from the table. One (orange background, next to red-coloured card) contains a picture of the Grim Reaper, like that on "The Trooper" cover. Just under one of the stacks of cards, on the edge of the table, Derek Riggs' signature can be seen. In the music video for a later song, "The Angel and the