Thanks for all the suggestions so far, but I have to restate, there is absolutely, positively no question whatsoever that the song was from at least the late 1980s/possibly very early 1990s. It was a flash-in-the-pan pop song that came out while I was in high school. (I was 10 in 1982.)
So 86 to 90 were your high school years? That helps narrow it down.
“Spaceman” by 4 Non Blondes?
87 to 91. (With a slight possibility it came out in my early college days.)
Have you tried looking at lists of one-hit wonders from the time frame?
Yeah, the last time it started nagging at me, a couple of years ago. Problem is, it wasn’t necessarily a “hit”, and lots of songs come out in a year’s time.
If you think it even made the Hot 100, those lists are available: Chart Landing Pages – Billboard
But I don’t remember the title of the song. To give an example of a similar mention, if I knew a song had the lyrics “Look at the stars so far away”, there would be no way for me to guess that those lyrics were in a song titled We’ve Got Tonight. The mention I’m thinking of is similar to that.
No worries. I’m just trying to come up with paths that might lead to a solution. It never surprises me how many patrons who can’t tell me the author or title of a book they remember a tiny bit about will, upon seeing the title and author in a list will suddenly know it upon seeing it.
How about “I lost my heart to a Starship Trooper”?
This might help. You can search lyrics by decade and search terms. This one’s for “stars” from the 80s. There’re about 90 pages, but you can scroll through them pretty quickly because the results helpfully gives a date of release.
“Planet” from the 80s only has about 13 pages.
Spinning Away by John Cale and Brian Eno (1990) has a very spacey quality to it and almost sounds like pop. Not sure if it would have shown up on pop radio, though.
Why Me? by Planet P? It has these lyrics (and also sounds kinda space-y):
Sitting up here watching all the lights blink down below
The earth is turning, why does it go so slow?
Maybe ‘space’ was in the band name: Spacehog - In the Meantime
This one might be too vague (and un-memorable) to get an answer–as I have said, it isn’t a “space themed” song, but simply has a line in it that is something like looking at the sky and wondering if there is any life out there, as a sort of philosophical musing–if the song (or band) you think of is anything overtly sciency or science-fictional, it isn’t the song. Think something in the league of the aforementioned *We’ve Got Tonight.
*
I so want the answer to be getting caught between the moon and New York Ciii-ty.
I have 50 Schrute bucks that say it wasn’t “After The Gold Rush”.
I’ll mention this only because it’s one of my favorites - Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble” (1986) contains the line: “…the way we look to a distant constellation that’s dying in a corner of the sky.”
Come on guys, it’s not that tough. I Was A Highway Man, in fact, by The Highwaymen was a big shittin’ song across the land.
Here’s a stab: Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram - Somewhere Out There (1986)