One Million Miles Away

One Million Miles Away by J. Ralph

Editor's Note:
This week we're looking at "Songs Commercials Made Me Love". Sometimes the song is really good and placed perfectly in the commercials. Sometimes the commercial is so good that the song freerides into its greatness.




When I hear this song, on its own, I can't help but notice the anxiety that the hook has and then there are those daunting strings. The bell, tolling throughout the song, almost announcing someones death like Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." And then the voice, almost creepy, yet beautiful, as if she is in an old church some where in England or France that was built in the 13th century, but now is nearly forgotten by members and tour books alike.

But I don't hear the urgency. The song itself isn't urgent... but the commercial? It's about as urgent as one can get. I remember my buddies and I being memorized by this commercial back in our college days. We would stop what we were doing or talking about and watch. It was such a fantastic commercial. One that I feel that males identified with more so than females... losing that love of ones life. Can he make it to the church in time? What the hell does the bride do? And if this ever happened in real life, how great or horrible of a moment would that be? I guess it all depends on what side of the alter and aisle one sits. This commercial, while not my personal favorite, might just be the best commercial I've ever seen.

Now that I think about this song and ad a little more, maybe it's so tied to my freshman and sophomore year of college that it's taken on so many emotions and ideas I had at the time. I was reading Thomas Gray for class around this time, I had a core group of guys and we did everything together, we all had loves or at least dreamed of having loves who we would drive across the country for just to prevent her from getting married. It was one of the better times in my life... and this commercial ties a lot of those memories together.