Day After Day #161: A Million Miles Away

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

A Million Miles Away (1982)

Certain songs become inextricably linked to a certain time or place. In the case of the Plimsouls, their song "A Million Miles Away" will forever be remembered as representative of the early '80s, but it's so much more than that.

Formed in Paramount, California, in 1978 by singer-guitarist Peter Case (formerly of the Nerves), the Plimsouls started as a trio with Case, bassist Dave Pahoa and drummer Lou Ramirez. The Plimsouls played the kind of power pop that was all the rage in the late '70s/early '80s thanks to the success of the Knack. 

The band released a 5-song EP called Zero Hour in 1980, after which they were joined by guitarist Eddie Munoz. The title track was a radio hit in Los Angeles and the band signed to Planet Records and released their self-titled debut album in 1981. After the debut didn't sell well, the band left Planet and self-released "A Million Miles Away" as a single in 1982. It reached #11 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and was featured in the 1983 movie Valley Girl, which also featured the band playing the song and parts of two other. 

The Plimsouls signed a deal with major label Geffen Records and included "A Million Miles Away" on their major-label debut Everywhere at Once, which came out in May 1983.

Immediately, the song has that classic Rickenbacker guitar sound that harks back to the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and the Who's "I Can See for Miles." The intro leads into Case belting out the first verse.

"Friday night, I'd just got back/I had my eyes shut and dreaming about the past/I thought about you while the radio played/I should have got loaded, some reason I stayed/I started drifting to a different place/I realized I was falling off the face of the world/And there was nothing left to bring me back/I'm a million miles away/A million miles away/I'm just a million miles away/And there's nothing left to bring me back today."

In a post on his blog, Case writes about working on the song with his friends Joey Alkes and Chris Fradkin, who helped him write a bunch of songs that were on the Plimsouls' first album. Case Fradkin were sitting in a bar after seeing the Germs play and Case started writing some lyrics.

"We talked about the words, and each kicked in some lines. I was remembering something from a long time back and the feeling was pouring into the song. I'd been having an affair with a girl I really thought a lot of, and that had just broken off. Something of my childhood was in it, too. A lyric was taking shape based on all of this."

They went over to Alkes' place and he came up with the chorus. They taped it on a cassette and forgot about it until it later became a stone cold classic.

The song has so much angst about lost love, but it rocks furiously.

"Took a ride, I went downtown/The streets were empty, there was no one around/To a place that we used to know/Been to all the places that we used to go/I'm at the wrong end of your looking glass/Just trying to hold onto the hands of the past and you/And there was nothing left to bring me back/I was a million miles away."

The song's placement in Valley Girl was huge, with the film becoming a hit. It focused on a Romeo and Juliet-esque romance between a valley girl (the term was popularized by Frank and Moon Unit Zappa's song of the same name) and a punk played by a young Nicolas Cage. In addition to the Plimsouls, the soundtrack was full of new wave hits include Josie Cotton's "Johnny Are You Queer?", the Payolas' "Eyes of a Stranger," Modern English's "I Melt With You" and Men at Work's classic "Who Can It Be Now?"

"A Million Miles Away" was re-released as a single in 1983 and got up to #82 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album reached #186 on the Billboard 200 chart, which was 33 spots lower than the debut album. The band broke up in 1984, with Case pursuing a solo career. A young band called the Goo Goo Dolls covered "A Million Miles Away" on their 1990 album Hold Me Up and a re-recorded version ended up on the soundtrack to the movie Speed.

The Plimsouls reunited in 1986 without Ramirez and recorded an album called Kool Trash, with Blondie's Clem Burke on drums. It got decent reviews but didn't sell well. The band has reunited a few times to play shows since then. In 2016, Munoz registered a trademark for the band's name and toured as the Plimsouls without the other three members, who filed for trademark infringement against Munoz. Pahoa died last fall, but his family continued the case. Last month, a three-judge panel held that the Plimsouls partnership owned the band's name and Munoz didn't have an individual right to the trademark.