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“classic distances” in song

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I watched yesterday’s London Marathon coverage in the hope of seeing my pal on the telly. In vain, as it turned out, as he wasn’t in fancy dress and he doesn’t have large breasts (there’s a reason why TV camera operators are called ‘cameramen’).

Anyhow, there were a couple of commentary classics. “Ben Evans has broken the world record for a marathon in a dinosaur costume. I wonder what he was dressed as?”

“Twenty six point two miles. That most classic of distances”. Which made me think…

What other classic distances can you think of? Paging KFD!

Here’s one to be going on with (if this works).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM0sTNtWDiI

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Comments

  4. Always happy to oblige, Steve.

    I’ll kick off with a stonker of a track from the Airplane: Three fifths of a mile in ten seconds.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCURfNB5m5o

    If anyone can explain the title of this song, I would be eternally grateful.

    Now Slim Dusty makes me wonder whether an Australian country mile is longer than one in Blighty. You definitely see more roos than you do in Sussex.

    • I assumed it was something to do with drag racing, but it’s not. Here’s what I found

      “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” is a psychedelic rock song by the band Jefferson Airplane. It was written by Marty Balin after he recalled “just looking in the newspaper at the sports section and seeing ‘three-fifths of a mile’, and somewhere else on the page, ‘ten seconds’. And I combined the two in a sudden flash.”
      3/5 of a mile in ten seconds is 216 mph (347.6 kph).

  10. Here’s a ‘classical’ distance – an enigmatic ‘distance’ from the classical world. Pytheas of Massila, in his now lost book ‘On The Ocean’, sailed to Britain and beyond from the Mediterranean in the 6th century BC. Which was an uncommon thing to do in those days. Some of his writings were quoted by other writers of the time, including the observation that Ultima Thule lay ‘six days north’ of Britain.

    I found the mystery rather inspiring.

  13. The Pretenders can go four times further than the Proclaimers. There are more of them, I suppose, and one of them is hard-as-nails Chrissie Hynde.

    My old mucker Boo Hewerdine had two distance songs, ’16 Miles’ and ’59 Yds’, on the same album. Perhaps he was pre-empting my need 24 years in the future.

  16. That Beyonce lady has a fresh jam out called 6 inches (as we are all saying), but only the one person with Tidal can currently hear it. So not sure what 6 inches she is referring to.

  18. Great idea for a thread…

    It strikes me that, although not a precise distance, ‘Yard of Blonde Girls’ (Jeff Buckley) might be a *very interesting distance indeed*.

    There’s always Eight Miles High if that doesn’t float your boat…

  21. One thing’s for certain. It would be very unwise to ´make a travel itinerary based on pop songs.

    Is there even a Midnight train to Georgia? In which case, which platform does it leave from? Is there a buffet car?

    The distances in Jimmy Webb’s mega-hit By the time I get to Phoenix are completely up the creek and have led to a lot of discussions and even some map making

    Wikipedia: “the drive is actually possible. If she “rises” at 6:00 a.m. when he is in Phoenix, and she eats lunch at 12:30 p.m. when he is in Albuquerque, it gives him six and one-half hours to make the 420-mile drive, an average of 65 mph. The drive from Albuquerque to Oklahoma is just 340 miles, giving her plenty of time to get home and go to sleep.”

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