U2: 10 Best Album Tracks

The title for the song was inspired by a conversation Bono had with his brother about how his struggling business was going, he uttered the phrase "It’s like running to stand still". Bono had never heard the phrase before and thought it expressed what he thought heroin addiction and the effects on the body were like.

Dublin in the 1980s had a massive heroin epidemic, and the song was written about a man who became a heroin smuggler to feed his and his partner's addiction. The couple lived in the Ballymun flats, a stone’s throw away from were Bono grew up, and in the foundations he played in as a child.

The flats became filled with drug users as the area struggled to combat the drug problems. The famous lyric, “I see seven towers, But I only see one way out” referencing the seven Ballymun flats.

The song deals with heroin addiction and withdrawal, very much like U2’s other famous song about heroin addiction in Dublin the live favourite Bad being the first to do so.