A Thousand Miles

Walking Faster

A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton

Recommended by Carly K.

"Played on a recent road trip and forgot how this song was used in every chick flick in the early 2000s and made fun of in White Chicks. Gotta love it."

Hahaha, yeah. What did they call it in White Chicks? "Like, the whitest song ever."

We can also call it "one of the most enduring songs of the millennium" (according to Billboard) and "Grammy-nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)" (x).

Those Grammy nominations, by the way, were from 2003, and this song 15 years old.

Since this song's release, Vanessa Carlton has released 4 more albums and grown a lot as an artist. A Spin interview mentioned that she doesn't always love answering questions about a song she wrote when she was 16, even if it was a smash it (x).

That probably happens all the time. I mean, Maroon 5 will always be playing songs from Songs About Jane, and She Will Be Loved definitely came out around the same time as A Thousand Miles.

Anyway, before she got sick of talking about the song, Carlton said she wrote the song about her late grandfather. "[It's] a combination of reality and fantasy. It's about a love that so consumes you that you do anything for it. That's how I felt at the time" (x).

I think the lyrics sound more like the protagonist is yearning for a romantic sort of love. I wonder if she was asked to change it to make it more #relatable and radio-ready.

(Update: Wikipedia says that management changed a bit about the song but never touched the lyrics.)

Legend has it that before she was signed, Carlton played the intro for a record producer, and they said "You have to finish that." And she went home to her parents and wrote the rest of the song in an hour (x). Maybe you can rush perfection.

Of course, the real perfection point that gives this song its "spectacular charm" is the piano riff, and that's the part that Carlton had written months or even years before she ever stepped into a studio (x).

Fun fact: Carlton had wanted to call this song Interlude, but Ron Fair of A&M Records fought her on it; however, you can see that it's called "A Thousand Miles (Interlude)" on the Legally Blonde soundtrack (x).

Overview:

Genre:
Pop

Favorite Lyrics:
Staring blankly ahead
Just making my way
Making a way
Through the crowd

That is me literally any day of the year.

Verdict:
this is my jam

According to PopMatters, it's "catchy and hard to dislike," and that's everything I love about Top 40 (x).