I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

"I'm Gonna Be"
Song

"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", not to be confused with the folk song 500 Miles, is a song written and performed by Scottish pop band The Proclaimers. It was released on their 1988 Sunshine on Leith album, and subsequently as a single. It has become one of their most popular songs, reaching #11 in the UK charts and No. 1 on the Australian ARIA Charts in 1989, plus, five years later, #3 in the Billboard Hot 100. The song has become a live staple at their concerts. The Proclaimers played it at Edinburgh 50,000 - The Final Push, the final concert of Live 8 at Murrayfield Stadium on 6 July 2005, to symbolise the conclusion of The Long Walk To Justice.

The song is popular in Scotland (and Ireland), where, at Hampden Park, every time the national football team scores, the song is played and sung along to by Scotland fans. It is the unofficial anthem of Edinburgh's Hibernian F.C., the Proclaimers being fans of the team.

"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" was featured on the soundtrack to the 1993 film Benny & Joon. As a result the music video features a young Johnny Depp, who starred in the film.

The song was also the theme song for the Swedish TV-show, High Chaparall. It also features in the How I Met Your Mother episode Arrivederci, Fiero, as the song stuck in the tape player of Marshall Eriksen's Pontiac Fiero between 1994 and 2007.

Tracklisting

Original 1988 version

1. I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
2. Better Days
3. Teardrops

Comic Relief 2007 version

1. I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - New audio with special guests
2. I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - Original 1988 version
3. I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - CD-ROM video [new version with special guests]
4. Photo Gallery

Covers

• Down By Law, on their album Punkrockacademyfightsong.
• spunge on their covers album That Should Cover It!.
• Koopa, as a B-side on their single "No Trend".
• Toy Dolls, on their album One More Megabyte.
• The Belgian band Voice Male, on their albums That's Live and On Stage.
• Steven Curtis Chapman, on his album All About Love.
• Phish, on 12/30/97 at Madison Square Garden with Tom Marshall.
• The MacDonald Brothers, on The X Factor.
• Maxïmo Park, live on Jo Whiley's Live Lounge for BBC Radio 1.
• Mimikry, on their album Automatiskt (Swedish, title: 500 mil)
• Verbal Warning currently perform a punked-up version of this in their live set.
• Najwa Nimri, on her album Walkabout
• Less Than Jake punk cover "I Would Walk 500 Miles"

Comic Relief

The Proclaimers re-recorded the song, with Peter Kay and Matt Lucas, the latter two in the guise of their characters Brian Potter and Andy Pipkin (from Phoenix Nights and Little Britain respectively). There is a slight change in the lyrics with the words "roll 500 miles" replacing "walk 500 miles". This is because the characters Brian Potter and Andy Pipkin are both in wheelchairs. This version was released as a charity single for Comic Relief on 19 March 2007. It reached #3 on the official UK Singles Chart on download sales alone, and one week later reached number one, where it remained for three weeks. It sold 126,000 copies in its first week making it the biggest selling number one of the year up to that point. Its sales were double that of the "official" Comic Relief single by Girls Aloud vs. Sugababes, and their cover of Aerosmith's Walk This Way. The song ended 2007 as the years 9th biggest-selling single in the UK

The Proclaimers' original recording also re-entered the Top 40 following the success of the Comic Relief version.