The clip for ‘ Million Miles ‘ begins with an adamant woman trying to explain the plight of the environment through her involvement in a gardening show. However, all of her attempts are quashed by the frustrated director, who’s dream of light-hearted, gardening-related entertainment is clearly going down the toilet. This sequence then flows into the start of the TV On The Radio track, where the woman proceeds to get up close and personal with nature. Aided by what seems to be some kind of hallucinogen, given to her by a lurking moss-covered forest dweller.
Shortly afterwards, she lures people into the forest with her and feeds them hallucinogens, just as they were fed to her, until they too start rolling around on the ground and twirling leaves in front of their faces for an extended period of time. If this sounds weird, that’s because it is. In some ways I did understand the connection between appreciating nature and the drugs, if only because people on drugs seem to enjoy bright colours and touching things with lots of texture. It was the environmental activist turned drug pusher angle that I couldn’t quite get my head around.
The song itself though is solid. ‘Million Miles’ is an easy, yet rollicking tune. It is certainly much more of a ballad than some of their other well-known songs, like mega-hit ‘ Wolf Like Me ‘. However this art rock band demonstrate their diversity over and over again, with ‘Million Miles’ being no exception.
It is clear that ‘Million Miles’ also has quite a strong agenda, in bringing ecological issues to the forefront, however it works well within the context of the song. ‘Million Miles’ is streaming now on MySpace.
WORDS BY Alex Byrne
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