Invisible Sun Lyrics
One, two, three, four, five, six
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
[Verse 1]
I don't wanna spend the rest of my life
Lookin' at the barrel of an Armalite
I don't wanna spend the rest of my days
Keepin' outta trouble like the soldiers say
[Verse 2]
I don't wanna spend my time in hell
Lookin' at the walls of a prison cell
I don't ever wanna play the part
Of a statistic on a government chart
[Chorus]
There has to be an invisible sun
It gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day's done
[Verse 3]
It's dark all day and it glows all night
Factory smoke and acetylene light
I face the day with my head caved in
Lookin' like somethin' that the cat brought in
There has to be an invisible sun
It gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day's done
[Guitar Solo]
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
[Verse 4]
And they're only gonna change this place
By killin' everybody in the human race
They would kill me for a cigarette
But I don't even wanna die just yet
[Chorus]
There has to be an invisible sun
It gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day's done
[Outro]
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
(Whoa-oh-oh, whoa)
About
Track three of Ghost in the Machine, “Invisible Sun” serves as a sort of commentary on the imprisonment of Irish Republican Army (IRA) members in the infamous H-blocks of Maze Prison, Northern Ireland during The Troubles in 1981. A number of prisoners went on hunger strikes to protest conditions in the jail. Among those to die were Bobby Sands, who was elected to the British Parliament while a prisoner, only to die on 5 May 1981. He was the first of eight persons to succumb to the effects of the hunger strikes.
While the song offers up an image of despair, Sting wrote it with the basis of hope for a troubled country, as he told Revolver magazine in 2000:
“I actually wrote the song in Ireland, where I was living at the time. It was during the hunger strikes in Belfast. I wanted to write about that but I wanted to show some light at the end of the tunnel. I do think there has to be an ‘invisible sun’. You can’t always see it, but there has to be something radiating light into our lives.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
Stewart Copeland, The Police’s drummer, felt a more personal connection to the song:
For me, the song was about Beirut, where I’d grown up, which at that point was going up in flames. My hometown was being vilified by the media as a terrorist stronghold, and it was being blasted by bombs and napalm. Twenty thousand Lebanese were killed that year. And the Lebanese must have been feeling some heat from the invisible sun, because they were keeping their peckers up.