“I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers

The Proclaimers, the Scottish duo of Craig and Charlie Reid, wrote and sang "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", and Chrysalis sent it out in August 1988 as the first single from their second album, Sunshine on Leith. It's Celtic rock with its heart on its sleeve. At home it stopped at number 11 on the UK chart, but it went all the way to the top in Australia, Iceland and New Zealand.

America took its time. In 1993 the song showed up in the film Benny & Joon and finally got a North American release on the back of it, shooting to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number eight on Modern Rock Tracks, while Canada took it to number four.

The Reids gave it another run in 2007, re-recording it with the comedians Peter Kay and Matt Lucas for Comic Relief, and that version went to number one in the UK, beating the original's showing there. It has long been a fixture of their concerts: on 6 July 2005 they played it at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, at the final concert of Live 8, to mark the end of "The Long Walk to Justice", and in 2026 Scotland adopted it as a goal song at the FIFA World Cup.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.