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THE COOL SONGS IT WAS NEVER COOL TO LIKE

'I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)', by The Proclaimers

There can be few more direct, heartfelt, and downright euphoric songs to have come out of Eighties Britain than the track that opened The Proclaimers’ fourth album 'Sunshine on Leith'.

Considering 1988 had given the British public The Smiths’ ‘Rank’, Sonic Youth’s ‘Daydream Nation’, U2’s ‘Rattle and Hum’, and the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Introspective’ it still seems somewhat incredible that two Everly Brothers throwbacks should be shot to worldwide attention with a highly uncool mix of folk-rock, traditional song writing, and lyrics drawn from the idiom of working-class Edinburgh. But forget the synthesised pyrotechnics of the Pet Shop Boys and the maudlin witticisms of Morrissey, ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ is a good, honest, old-fashioned love song for those days when you feel like shouting your beloved’s name from the rooftops, as the feel-good lyrics and sing-along chorus bring out the romantic (hopeless or otherwise) in us all.

In January 1989, Stephen Andrew of Australia’s Juke magazine was blown away by the Reid brothers’ ‘straight forward lyrics, simple, [and] catchy tunes’ showcased in ‘a song of total devotion and dedication to another human’, concluding: ‘This is folk rock that actually rocks! And kicks, and thumps, and bellows and screams of joyous release.’ And it is difficult to argue with Andrew’s assessment as the muted, rhythmic intro section sees the guitars modestly taking second place to the simple melody of the vocal line, allowing our Scottish troubadours to begin their endearingly self-effacing serenade in the most unpretentious of terms:


When I wake up yeah I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next to you.
When I go out yeah I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man who goes along with you.

This is about nothing less than the need to be together absolutely, lover never further from the object of his affection than from his own shadow, implying a physical desire for union as powerful as any emotional one. Later this desire becomes so overwhelming that our love-struck protagonist pledges to give himself up entirely to her service:

When I’m working yes I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man who’s working hard for you
And when the money comes in for the work I’ll do
I’ll pass almost every penny on to you.


The lyrics constantly return to traditional working-class ideas about the man’s role within the home as lover, protector and ‘breadwinner’, just as the dream of ‘growing old with you’ is at once a well-worn cliché and a serious affirmation of commitment—true pipe and slippers stuff. Then comes the chorus, familiar from 80s disco nights everywhere, in which the stakes are raised to a new level of touching silliness. Not content with working all day to fund his lover’s shopping trips, our martyr vows to take on one final act of physical exertion to prove the depth of his feelings:

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles
To fall down at your door.


Going beyond the taxing, but ultimately surmountable, mountains, rivers and oceans that have been exploited by songwriters for centuries, this promised act of walking is both a ridiculously overblown gesture and a fundamentally simple one as, in the words of that ancient Chinese proverb, ‘Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’.

Refreshingly free of the roses, chocolates, expensive restaurants and extravagant jewellery that have come to pass for romance in our media-saturated age, ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ is ultimately an uncomplicated song about a man who is prepared to do anything for the woman he loves; the raw joy that these feelings provoke; and the distinctly human need to share this joy with the rest of the world. Bizarrely, occasional Scottish dialect words like ‘havering’ (which apparently means ‘babbling on’) merely serve to emphasise the universal nature of the feelings being talked about here—love being felt in much the same way, one suspects, from Edinburgh to El Salvador.

Although the single initially failed to make the British Top Ten, it was shot straight to no. 3 in America in 1993, and spent a total of twenty-eight weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 after appearing on the soundtrack to the film Benny and Joon. Having won over America with its substantial radio exposure and recorded over one million sales, ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ was greeted with similar enthusiasm in Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, where the single spent six weeks at no. 1.

Described as ‘Scotland’s National Band’ by the Edinburgh Evening News on 24 May 2002 following a sell-out gig at the Haddington Corn Exchange, there is still strong affection in Britain for the Reid brothers and their biggest hit, not least among a generation of music buyers and gig-goers whose memories of the Eighties will be for ever shaped by Sesame Street, Action Man, and school semolina. Comfortably making the NME Reader’s Poll of Top 50 Singles in 1988 at a time when the NME’s opinion was still worth something, ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ was certainly one of those ‘Cool Songs It Was Never Cool To Like’.

So shrug off those tired prejudices about folk rock as the sole preserve of bearded sandal-wearers, put on your best Scottish accent, and think back to those days of romantic exuberance when you really were prepared, however briefly, to walk the equivalent distance of thirty-eight-and-a-half marathons back-to-back simply to pass out at the door of that special someone. Now whatever happened to that cool Housemartins album I lent my sister all those years ago…?

CGV