Madonna .:. Miles Away

[pro-player width=’420′ height=’300′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7IjdBQetks[/pro-player]
“Miles Away” is a song by American recording artist Madonna from her eleventh studio album, Hard Candy. It was first released as a promotional single in Japan, during June 2008, as the theme for the Fuji Television Japanese drama, Change. The song was released by Warner Bros. Records, as the third and final single from the album, on October 17, 2008. Written by Madonna, Justin Timberlake and Timbaland, “Miles Away” is a melancholy electronic ballad, which, according to Madonna is autobiographical. The song deals with long distance relationships.

Musically “Miles Away” is a melancholy song with influences of ballad. The song carries the characteristic sound of Timbaland-Timberlake production. Generally a downtempo electronic song, “Miles Away” is accompanied by beats and backing vocals, which sing the lines “So far away”.
During recording, Timberlake sat down with Madonna and played a guitar riff composed by him, asking her how she wanted the song to sound. Madonna had “all these thoughts, riddles, poems, feelings, all written in huge notebooks,” Timberlake said, “and she kept handing them over. It was amazing, taking these little bits here and there and putting them together like a puzzle.” In this way, one of the ideas they connected was the universality of long-distance relationships, the pain and heartache of which they were able to incorporate in “Miles Away”. After recording the song, Timberlake commented that he had helped creating a classic Madonna song, “”I couldn’t do a song like that, […] I thought it was completely her. That was the trick.”

In the Sticky & Sweet Tour, “Miles Away” was performed during the gypsy segment of the show. Madonna wore a gypsy inspired Givenchy long cape over a black dress, with pink colored ribbons around her neck. She also wore black stockings on her leg. Before starting the song she said, “This is for all who know the struggle of long distance relationships. I know you’re out there.” While dancers gathered and sat down in a circle around her, Madonna went up on a platform, started playing the acoustic guitar and encouraged the crowd to clap and sing along. The screens give another message to the song, showing a stream of world maps and passport stamps and the history as well as journey of gypsies travelling around the world, adding to the atmosphere of that particular section of the show.