2011Released
3:57

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about A Thousand Miles. By Songfacts®.

This describes the feelings of anyone who has lost someone they really loved. Carlton sings about how she would do anything to be with that person, or even to just to see them. It is about a person who is in an untouchable world because of the pain they have from their loss.

This got Grammy nominations for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year, but like just about everything else that year, it lost both to "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones. Carlton performed this on the show.

This song features prominently in the 2004 movie White Chicks, starring Shawn and Marlon Wayans as FBI agents who go undercover as white girls. The agents are nearly busted when they're riding in a car with some real white chicks when "A Thousand Miles" comes on and they don't know the words like every white girl should. Later in the movie, we find out that it's the favorite song of another character in the film, who happens to be a big black guy (Terry Crews). The movie was trashed by critics and nominated for a Golden Raspberry award for Worst Movie, but some people love the film and lots of people saw it both in the theaters and on its many TV showings. When Songfacts spoke with Vanessa Carlton in 2011, we asked her how she felt about her song in the movie. She said: "I thought it was hilarious. Those guys are really nice, too. I ran into them backstage or something, and they asked me if they could use it. They're like fans, they're so cute. But the scene that was in was hilarious." When we asked how she feels about the song being used as a white girls anthem, she replied, "If you've seen it, that's not the message of it. That is not the way that they plug it in the film. It's actually the secret song of that big, black dude in the SUV, it's like his jam. But the irony is that people associate it with a white girl playing the piano. It's like his secret jam, so it's able to push through all of those micro genres and you can't profile who's going to like the song. That's what they were displaying in that scene. And I really liked that a lot." According to Terry Crews, he memorized the song and nailed the scene on the first take.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of A Thousand Miles.
BKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
95BPM

Album

The album A Thousand Miles is released on.
Best OfVanessa Carlton
2011Compilation

Released By

The record label that has released A Thousand Miles.
A&M (UC)
© 2011 A&M Records
This Compilation ℗ 2011 A&M Records

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5.8MArtists
73.5MSongs
12.3MAlbums
6.3KGenres
2.5MLabels
493KPlaylists