Those of us who are of a certain vintage will remember with fondness “Five Hundred Miles”, an iconic folk song from the 1960s. Composed by Hedy West, an American folk singer from Georgia, Five Hundred Miles is a song about a railroad traveler who journeys far away, falls into poverty and is too ashamed to go home. At the heart of the song is a lament, born from the contradiction of the shame of his poverty and the aching desire to return home, immortalized in the following excerpts from the song:

If you miss the train I’m on
You will know that I have gone
You can hear the whistle blow
a hundred mile …

Not a shirt on my back
Not a penny to my name
Lord, I can’t a living this a-away
This a-way (3x)
Lord, I can’t make a living
this a-way …

If you miss the train I’m on
You will know that I have gone
You can hear the whistle blow
a hundred miles.

But I think the song can be read much deeper as an allegory of how life is lived. Let’s walk through the song line by line and see.

The first line “If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone” can be thought of as symbolizing a journey through life where a loved one misses the train you are on – train standing for the things that matter to you. It means they have not understood the direction your life is going, so that over time, their lives have drifted from yours, moving further and further away. Of course, the reverse may also be true.

The next line of the song says, “You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles”. This means that the signs were there; they (you) could hear it, but then again, they (you) didn’t hear it.

Following that is the line that says, “If my honey said so … I would sidetrack my engine and go home”, implies that the traveller is ready to do a U-turn and go home if only his or her loved one would say so.

The main chorus “Lord I’m one, Lord I’m two, Lord I’m three, Lord I’m four, Lord I’m five hundred miles away from home” expresses the growing emotional distance that can never be reversed. Then we get the line that says “My clothes are all worn and my shoes are all torn” indicating that the traveller is in a bad state. He wants to come home, but can’t, a sentiment reinforced by the ending line “You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.”

I love songs that do more than scratch the surface of what it means to live, and I think “Five Hundred Miles” is such a song, an allegory of how two persons can drift apart when there is nothing in common to hold them together. This is true not only for intimate relationships but also for friendships in general. As this quote by the Palestinian poet and author, Mahmoud Darwish puts it so pointedly: “Do not be absent for long, then come and ask about how I am. Details die with time, and stories change.”

Listen

Scores of artists have sung “Five Hundred Miles”, including The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez and Justin Timberlake but I’m partial to the following rendition by Japanese singer, Yamamoto Junko.