100 Things Challenge - Music in my Head #5
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Entry #: 5
Song Title: A Thousand Miles
Artist: Vanessa Carlton
Album: Be Not Nobody
Year: 2002
Video:
Click to viewBlog: So this song is being used to advertise Twinings Tea here in Australia at the moment so I’m hearing it all the time! I love this song though; so much so that I included it on a Spuffy fanmix I compiled (but the link to download doesn’t works any more) a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly, I made that before Spike had joined the comics and the whole thing about Buffy knowing or not knowing whether he was still alive was still all up in the air and this song seemed to sum up what I thought Buffy might be thinking if she thought that Spike was dead with words like:
If I could fall into the sky
Do you think time would pass me by
'Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles
If I could just see you tonight.
I’m not sure I’d include it in a Spuffy fanmix now. It doesn’t really fit the story anymore. Because the comics told us that Buffy did know that Spike was alive and that it was kind of a non-event in her very busy post-tv series life. Look, I like the comics fine; I’m still reading them and I really quite liked the ending to season 8 but I still don’t think that Spike’s re-introduction was handled very well. It seemed like it was easier to have Buffy know all along that he was alive, not because it was good for the story but because then they could gloss over all those pesky little questions that had been left hanging since the end of BtVS and season five of Angel just so they wouldn’t have to address them in the limited space of a monthly comic. To me, It smacked of narrative convenience rather than a genuine plot choice. And I get that Buffy was pissed at Spike for not contacting her. And I get that Buffy really was very busy running a world-wide Slayer organisation but it doesn’t change the fact that their reunion was just such a letdown to those of us who had thought about it, written about it in the years between the series end and Spike’s long overdue appearance in the comic and it didn’t do justice to the relationship that had been established in the series, whether you believed she loved him or not. And no, I didn’t imagine some big-orchestral-accompanied-running-towards-each-other-arms-out-stretched-smooch-fest-complete-with-declarations-of-undying-love-type reunion. But I did think it would be more that a quip about his sacrifice in Chosen being a ‘studly’ act. I still think it would have worked better in the narrative if Buffy didn’t know that Spike was alive. Her surprise and confusion and peevishness would have worked so much better as an accompaniment to her discovery that Spike was in fact alive when she had thought otherwise.
I have enjoyed Buffy and Spike’s dynamic in season nine. Thus far, that has been the best part of the season; except that Buffy is entirely opaque and gives very little indication of her feelings while Spike has laid it all out there for her. I’m wondering if the separation (with Spike going off on his own adventure for five issues) will do them good? Will it make or break them as a ship/couple? I wonder if “A Thousand Miles” could once more become part of my Spuffy repertoire. . .