Miles Away (song)

"Miles Away" is a song by John Foxx, released as a single in October 1980. It was his fourth solo single, following "Burning Car" in July that year. The track was not included on any original album, falling roughly midway between the release of Foxx's debut LP Metamatic in January 1980 and his second album The Garden in September 1981.

Sonically, as well as chronologically, "Miles Away" was a transitional song in Foxx’s catalogue, its instrumentation being heavy with synthesizers, as in previous solo releases, but also featuring the acoustic drum sound that would characterise his remaining 1980s work. No detail on the electronics used in the song appeared on the original single's sleeve, however Foxx's studio equipment at the time included an ARP Odyssey, a Minimoog, an Elka 'String Machine', and an ARP Analog Sequencer.

The fanfare-like synthesizer lines of "Miles Away" were reminiscent of the track "Slow Motion" which opened the album Systems of Romance, Foxx's last with former band Ultravox. Regarding the song's title and subject matter, Foxx said "You know when you're looking out of a window or you're not quite present, you know you're with someone but your mind is on something else, and that is quite often my state of mind I think, so I decided to write a song about it."

74 Miles Away

74 Miles Away is a live album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley recorded in Hollywood, California in 1967 featuring performances by Adderley with Nat Adderley, Joe Zawinul, Victor Gaskin and Roy McCurdy.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 4 stars and states "This was a rare thing, a group that could grab the public's attention and gently lead them into more difficult idioms without pandering or condescension".

Track listing

Personnel

References

Goodbye Alice in Wonderland

Goodbye Alice in Wonderland is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Jewel, released on May 2, 2006, through Atlantic Records. The album marks a return to her musical roots after 0304, and trying to write an autobiographical album like she did with Pieces of You. The album was written in the form of a novel with each track representing a chapter. Although the first official single was "Again & Again", the title track "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland" debuted a month earlier on her website as an Internet exclusive. The second single, "Good Day" was released to radio in late June 2006. The next single was "Stephenville, TX". A video for it can be seen on Yahoo! Launch.

The album made its debut at #8 on the Billboard 200, with sales of 82,000 copies its first week, and became Jewel's fifth top 10 album in the United States. However, after only 12 weeks the album slid out of the Billboard 200. The album reappeared one week later after heavy promotion on various talk shows. It had sold 377,000 copies in the U.S. as of June 2010. Jewel stated she had plans to re-release the album, but her record company would not let her. However, they did allow her to release two singles in 2007.

Ten Thousand Miles Away

Ten Thousand Miles Away is a sea shanty whose writing and composition are attributed to Joseph B. Geoghegan.

Text

The lyrics as given in The Scottish Students' Song Book of 1897 are as follows:

Refrain

Verse 2

Verse 3

Verse 4

Verse 5

Origins and variants

In his Shanties from the Seven Seas Hugill says that this was originally a shore ballad sung by street singers in Ireland in the early nineteenth century. Later it became a popular music hall number.The Scottish Student's Song Book gives the author as "J. B. Geoghegan". This is Joseph Bryan Geoghegan (c. 1816 – 1889) who was manager of the Star and Museum Music Hall in Bolton, Lancashire

The song is numbered 1778 in the Roud Folk Song Index and it has been passed from singer to singer as a traditional shanty. The figure of "ten thousand miles" could well refer to the distance between England and Australia, and the separation of the lovers arise because the singer's lover has been transported. Several of the variant texts make this possibility more explicit. For example the lyrics sung by Jon Boden have the lines