3,000 Miles

This song is like five shorts, but sad stories in one. Stanzas 1and 2 is about what happens to girls who aren't careful and go out alone, then end up missing. (Your soft skin against the cold concrete. Stanzas 3 and 4 Are about being trapped in a bad relationship and what might happen if you don't leave( I'll take safe and terror free). Stanzas 5 and 6 This about living a tough neighborhood and just trying to survive (Terror rules the night) Stanza 7 Tells the horror of human beings where others think that love can solve anything. Stanza 8 Is about a run away who leaves home to only up dead.

this song is about how even though she has moved away from her urban life it is still a part of her even is she remains distant

I think it's about living in a crappy city, with all the trappings, high crime, white flight, a deflated housing market, and how the writer must be 3000 miles away from where she wants to be. So if the writer were from a nice place in California and moved to say, Detroit, that would about make sense then.

In my opinion, the song is about someone who reminds herself of her days in an american suburb. It deals with an economical crisis and the rising of criminality in a city. People with enough money leave this area, leaving the ones who can't do the same to their fates. It deals with an underlying racism, the fact that black american families are not welcome among the white people who have been living there, there is no spirit of community. And I think the woman who says "i'm 3,000 miles away" remembers of the days she used to live in this area, even if she would rather not remember the vivid memories of an assault. It may deal with a post-traumatic memory that comes to her mind and she has to convince herself that she is away from this area and that this doesn't happen to her all over again even if it seems real. But nevertheless the memories and the city that was her home are engraved in her soul. Maybe she feels guilty about having fled, because it didn't change a thing about what is still going on there.

I think she's singing this to someone she loves and she's like I'm still 3,000 miles away from you, and where I am all I can do is just to survive because everything is so dark and bad where she is and no matter what kind of girl she is it's dangerous to live where she lives and every day she's there she's not sure if she will make it out alive, but she has no means to escape to anywhere so she is telling the other person from where she is she can't even THINK about happiness because she has to focus on just surviving every day surrounded by bad guys and evil and darkness and she says where she lives tries to bring down her down. I think she really wants love and happiness and faith and beauty but where she lives it seems impossible and she says where she lives only innocents and fools bellieve that this human wasteland can ever get better and turn into a garden. I think she's in the first category, I think she's innocent and believes still, so she tries to survive with her goodness intact and to believe that things are going to get better, but still it is so dark around her....

I think this girl singing is still dreaming of the good things she needs, and of happiness some, but she says right now where she is the best she can do is just not to get dragged down or killed or disappear, so she'd SETTLE for safe and terror free, she doesn't need a lot she's not a greedy person, she'd love love I think and faith and the garden but she has had so much bad and so much danger around her that her goals have diminished to just wishing for safe and terror free. I can relate. I think that's what this song is about.

According to me this song is more about homesickness for a place you've dreamed of, a safe heaven amidst all the chaos, away from all the things because this world the "I don't feel at home in this world anymore" feeling which I can relate! It's so sad when she says "I'm 3000 miles away" it gives you chills and feel like there's a lover waiting for you <3 Just what I think about this song although it might be completely different but that's what Art is, it hits each one of us in a special way! Love Tracy Chapman so much! ❤

I think this song is about dissociating ("I'm 3000 miles away") while something really bad happens to you - and/or about violence towards women and abduction.