1,000 Miles c. 1995 Follow link to listen. Lyrics posted at bottom of post.
This summer a few friends from afar visited NYC, and I was fortunate to spend time with them. It actually sort of snowballed into hanging out with some local friends who I lost touch with but nevertheless am so fond of!
I realized I spend most of my life as a hermit, and the value of positive social interaction on my mood has been exponential.
So now that they are gone again, in my hangover of loneliness, an old old song replayed in my head. (Usually other people’s songs lay the soundtrack there, but occasionally my own creations fill the space.)
This is the only copy I have accessible. Though it was played live often in the first year of Moxie at parties and beaches and bars around Bayville, I don’t think we ever made a decent studio recording. This is simply a practice session with Katy and I. The words are mostly inaudible over the electric guitar, so I’ll write them here. If anyone happens to have a better recording, please let me know.
Incidentally, I remember a couple of musician guys telling me at the time, “There’s already a song called 1,000 miles, you know.” I didn’t know that, and I was glad, because it could have blocked the process. It wasn’t coming from a place of concern, but rather, an implication that I needed to change the title because it wasn’t original enough. My young 26 year old self would say, “I don’t care, that’s a different song than this one.”
A Thousand Miles (lyrics)
Everyone’s 1,000 miles away
Sometimes they’ll return for several days
Make it seem like it’s the same great place
But it’s never long
Used to be that I was the one to go
Drift in and out of their homes like a ghost.
The less I stayed the less I missed them all.
Once I was gone.
Now everyone’s 1,000 miles away, a thousand, a thousand miles away
I stay and watch my friends turn into strangers and turn strangers into friends.
I kissed another friend goodbye tonight
I blast my radio to drown the quiet
Close my eyes and dream about the time
I’ll run away.
Then we’ll all be a thousand miles away, a thousand, a thousand miles away….