The Distance (Cake song)

"The Distance"
Single by Cake
from the album Fashion Nugget
Released	October 15, 1996
Recorded	September 1996 (1996-09)
Genre	Pop rock[1] rap rock[2]
Length	3:00
Label	Capricorn
Songwriter(s)	Greg Brown
Producer(s)	Cake
Cake singles chronology
"I Will Survive" (1996) "The Distance" (1996) "Frank Sinatra" (1997)
Live performance (on band's Vevo channel)
Music video
”The Distance” on YouTube
Audio sample
"The Distance" file help

"The Distance" is a song by the American alternative rock band Cake. Released in 1996, "The Distance" was the second single from the band's second album Fashion Nugget, and considered one of their most popular songs.^[3] It was written by the band's guitarist at the time, Greg Brown.

Background[]

Guitarist Greg Brown wanted the guitar riff to be played throughout the entire song, but singer John McCrea felt it should be saved for the chorus.^[4]

“It is a song about success and failure, and failure of success, really," said McCrea in 2019. "It’s a sad song, because there is no success. You can explode into the world with great magnificence, and still feel like the guy underneath the Mickey Mouse head, with the fan batteries that have stopped working properly, and it’s dark under there, and everybody wants your autograph.”^[4]

Track listing[]

1. "The Distance" - 3:00
2. "Multiply the Heartaches" - 2:49
3. "Jolene" (Live) - 8:25
4. "It's Coming Down" - 3:44

Instrumentation[]

The song is based around Cake's standard guitar, bass, and drums setup, with flourishes of solo trumpet, and John McCrea's characteristically deadpan, driving vocals. The song does not employ McCrea's rhythm guitar, but does feature some overlaid synthesized and other non-traditional sounds. In the official music video, a glimpse of the melodica can be seen.

Music video[]

The video for "The Distance" features footage of the members of the band performing the song in a busy office lobby, mixed with footage of a businessman who inexplicably starts to run off into the sunset; first he runs from his office building (the same one the band is performing in) to the suburbs, then into the country and a forest, and finally into the sea. While the man is running, various people in humorous animal costumes cheer him on. It takes place in downtown San Francisco and other Northern California locations and first aired in September 1996.

In popular culture[]

• Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the song as a bonus track on their 2007 video game Alvin and the Chipmunks.
• In 2011, Relient K covered the song for their cover album, Is for Karaoke.
• The song was also used in The Simpsons episode "Saddlesore Galactica".
• The song was used in trailers of the 2013 DreamWorks Animation film, Turbo.
• British TV network ITV used the track as backing music for the trailer to its coverage of the 2015 Tour de France on ITV4.
• A cover version of the track with a different unknown female singer was used in the trailer of the documentary Icarus.
• The song's opening lyric, "Reluctantly crouched at the starting line", is prominently featured in the remix "The Starting Line" by Neil Cicierega on his album Mouth Moods.^[5]

Chart positions[]

References[]

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