"A Thousand Miles" was released as a CD Single by Vanessa Carlton.
The pop ballad features piano sections as well as string orchestral arrangements.
The song was written in the summer of 1998 at her parents' house in Philadelphia. It first appeared on the album Be Not Nobody. Carlton took a try at several producers and she finally has been accepted by Ron Fair. The choice of the title born some disagreements but Fair's nephew best bet gained the upper hand.
Fair made adjustments to instrumental opening and repeated the chorus in his own manner putting his signature over the song and also wrote, conducted and recorded the orchestra session.
The lyrics were wrote by the singer, and, as she recalls they came in a moment of grief, when her grandfather had died. Her intentions were to describe a very strong attachment towards somebody and the incapacity of changing anything. Vanessa used verbs of feeling such as I need, I miss, I don't belong, and, underlines the significance of the precious memories in our lives. The song's text reveals how important our relationships are. A thousand miles walk is just an initiated journey of our expectations.
A combination of pop and piano rock, "A Thousand Years" was released on February 12th, 2002, while the recording was done in 2000.
She started writing it at her parent's house, and encouraged by her mother and by a record producer to whom she presented a part of it, she recorded a demo tape a few years later. She initially titled it "Interlude".
Vanessa Carlton sent the demo to various producers, including Ron Fair, from A&M Records. The met and started working on the arrangements of the song so that they added more transitions and time signatures. They also changed the timing in which the chorus was repeating, as well as the orchestra section and the instrumental opening.
They recorded it throughout 14 sessions, and it was also the first track to be recorded from Carlton's debut album "Be Not Nobody". The finalized work featured bass guitar, guitar, drums, chorus and the main vocals.
The producers were Ron Fair and Curtis Schweitzer.
The B-Side of the single was "Red Ditty".
The first time people could hear the track was during a scene from the movie "Legally Blonde", one year before being released as a single.
The public gave Vanessa the glad eye and "A Thousand Miles" was a success.
It stayed on Billboard Hot 100 for 41 weeks, where it reached number three. Because of its popularity, the album, "Be Not Nobody" sold over 100.000 copies in just one week and reached number three on the albums chart. In Australia, it was the sixth most commercially successful single of the year. It was also number one other important charts such as US Billboard Adult Contemporary and US Billboard Pop Songs.
The music video, which was filmed in Newbury Park, features Vanessa Carlton playing a piano. The choice of the garage in the video reveals an antithesis between the long distance of thousand miles, but, at the same time, the nearness of two sides of a relationship. The success of the song brought the need of a video that matches it's feelings.
"A Thousand Miles" received three Grammy nominations: for "Best Instrumental Arrangements Accompanying Vocalist(s)", "Record Of The Year" and for "Song Of The Year". At the "Big In 2002" Awards, from VH1, it won on the category "Can't Get You Out Of My Head".
The single has been an important hit and commercial success of its decade as it was certified double platinum in Australia and gold in Belgium and New Zealand.
With an incredible gifted talent, she has brought new developments to piano pop rock through her number one hit.
Vanessa Carlton's A Thousand Miles piano sheet is just below. Enjoy and subscribe to our newsletter!
