QN5 Music

This intensely personal song deals with the sense of disconnection from one’s self over time – a point demonstrated by Tone’s use of third-person perspective until switching to first-person at the last moment to draw himself back in.

While “The Distance” is not connected in any way to the duo’s forthcoming Chico And The Man album, it is certainly a good indication of what’s to come and a welcome meal to tide us over.

And he traveled
And he traveled
And he traveled
And he traveled
And he traveled
And he traveled
And he traveled
And he traveled

I can feel the distance
I can feel the distance
I can feel the distance
I can feel the distance

The streets kept comin’ and comin’ and comin’
He sped through his tracks
And every scene he spied was all the same
But since he kept running, and running and running and never looked back,
He never realized how far he came.
And it didn’t matter, that the latter part hadn’t bothered him,
Rather, all the sadness that followed him
As if it was a ball and chain.
Cause along the way his posture had changed,
Fraught with his faults, and his anger,
Until he wouldn’t respond when they called his name.
It was all part of the game,
What started as a play to get ends
Had left him with a breadth of debt and less friends
And, yet, he never questioned where the quest went
And when dissenters didn’t deem him special
He did his best to impress them.
And this led to regrets then;
Still he was dead set on success,
And distress, he’d only express through a sent text
Addressed to anyone he hadn’t met yet
The tires peeled on desire’s wheels
Again he said, I can feel…

The distance
The more that he stepped, still
I can feel the distance.
The closer he’d get, still
I can feel the distance.
The more that he stepped, still
I can feel the distance.
The closer he’d get, still

The city had changed him.
As he reflected on the decade that passed,
His life, he reckoned at last, was a staged pun,
Where the fantasy masked where the grave was dug.
A double life revamped,
And the other side bites till it tastes blood.
So he drives to escape driving a stake through his great love
Incessantly trying to shine through the bars like a caged sun,
Dissecting a piece of this strange run
Over dirty southern acres
Working for crumbs in some underground dank club.
Where there’s nothing but strained hugs
For mother and father and estranged son;
‘Cause he can’t recall when he became one.
Though the shame is heavy and weighs tons
He still finds a way to place the blame on what they’ve done
Visits they’ve stayed away from,
And perhaps it was that all along.
So he just carries on,
Now he can barely call,
‘Cause the talks are rarely calm.
He wears his callouses like a tux to a daily prom,
Warily feeling ‘forever young’, until they play the song.
And his patient wife waits gracefully, while he breaks the dawn,
Racin’ ‘cross the states to raise the stakes and cost to pay it off
Debatin’ cons of procreation on the hopes he’d trade it all
For basic honest home relations. How’d they know it’d take this long?
But he placed his honor in the way he crawled,
All that means is he hits the floor harder from farther up in case he falls
He’s racing towards the exits,
So disconnected, he felt compelled to misdirect his perspective
I can feel the…

The distance
I can feel the distance
I can feel the distance
I can feel the distance
I can feel the distance

So far, so far away
And the more that I step, still
So far, so far away
The closer I get, still
So far, so far away from who I thought I’d be.

So far, so far away
And the more that I step, still
So far, so far away
The closer I get, still
So far, so far away from who I thought I’d be.

And I don’t wanna turn around, oh no
To see that I’m all alone.
Just a pillar of salt and stone.
Just a pillar of salt and stone.

And I don’t wanna turn around, oh no
To see that I’m all alone.
Just a pillar of salt and stone.
Just a pillar of salt and stone.