Yesterday’s song was a Christmas song that doesn’t sound much like one.
Today’s song is widely considered to be a Christmas song but … is it really?
When you hear the Pretenders’ “2000 Miles,” you hear a guitar played like a ringing a bell, quietly, gracefully. You hear a song referencing Christmas …
Our hearts were singingIt felt like Christmastime
… and seemingly set at the holidays …
I hear people singingIt must be Christmastime
… but what is “2000 Miles” about?
“It’s really about Father Christmas. No, it’s not. … Ummm … Wish you hadn’t asked me that. It, really, it’s just about someone who’s gone, really, and let’s just say it’s Father Christmas,” Pretenders singer and guitarist Chrissie Hynde said with considerable reluctance during an interview on the Dutch music show “Countdown” in late 1983.
That someone is Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, who was 25 when he died in June 1982. Hynde wrote “2000 Miles” a year later.
He’s gone two thousand milesIs very farThe snow is falling downGets colder day by dayI miss you
However, the Pretenders’ “Back on the Chain Gang” is widely accepted as their tribute to Honeyman-Smith, written by Hynde as a memorial to him.
Then what of “2000 Miles,” if not also a tribute, clearly inspired by Honeyman-Smith, and still quite possibly a Christmas song? As always, you be the judge.
“2000 Miles” was released as a single in November 1983, just before Christmas, in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
America and the rest of the world heard “2000 Miles” on the Pretenders’ “Learning to Crawl” album when it was released a couple of months later in January 1984.