I'm gonna be (500 miles)

We are about to celebrate Saint Valentine's Day and I wanted to find a love song for the class that would not be too "cheesy".

"I'm gonna be (500 miles)" by The Proclaimers is quite a famous song, but maybe you don't know it because you are too young.

"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" is a song written and performed by Scottish duo The Proclaimers, and first released as the lead single from their 1988 album Sunshine on Leith. Although it failed to reach the top ten in either the UK or Ireland on its initial release, it has since become their most popular song worldwide.

We are going to work with the song in class using this worksheet. It is really good for practising the "be going to" future tense.

worksheet

These are some popular facts about the song:

The song is often played in the warm up before the Scotland football team matches when playing at home at Hampden Park in Glasgow, and again when the team scores. The same is true for the Scottish Rugby team at Murrayfield Stadium although since 2013 a mashup version of the song mixed with David Guetta's "Titanium" and Midnight Oil's "Beds Are Burning" has been used as well.

The song is also often played at Easter Road before Scottish Premiership side Hibernian's home matches. The song is also sometimes played when "Hibs" score a goal.

Scottish darts player Robert Thornton uses the song as his walk-on song.

In 2007, Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the song, with minor lyric changes, for their video game Alvin and the Chipmunks.

At the end of the fourth series of the new Doctor Who, a video of the cast and crew of the show (as well as The Proclaimers themselves) singing and dancing along to the song was released, as a farewell to David Tennant, Russell T. Davies, and other key players in the show's development; hailing the shift into the Steven Moffat era of the show.

The song was also very popular in Spain in the late 1990s thanks to TV advertisements. It was a reference song for the ads of Retevisión, one of the first private telecommunications companies in Spain.

The song is also featured on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Arrivederci, Fiero", in which it is revealed that the character Marshall has had a cassette tape with the song on it stuck in his car for years. Commentary on the song's unlimited replay value follows. It remained a running gag for the rest of the series.

This song is also featured on the Grey's Anatomy episode in season 9 "Readiness is All" when Matthew proposes to April in a surprise flash-mob to this song.

The song is featured in the movies Bachelorette, Identity Thief, Benny & Joon, Burke and Hare and Pitch Perfect. It is also featured in the movie The Angels' Share directed by Ken Loach, which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.

A cover of the song was recorded by Down by Law on their album Punkrockacademyfightsong.

The song is sung in the television series The Cafe by Ralf Little and cast to close out the final episode of season one, "Deal or No Deal".

The song is also sung in the 2014 Australian film 500 Miles by the lead actor Pete Valley to the lead actress Ebony Nave in a quite iconic scene that is set in a small country town pub.

In 2011, the Daily Mail reported that the song inspired a fan, Ling Hsueh, to tease her boyfriend, Liu Peiwen, she would marry him only if he walked 1000 miles for her, and that he, not realizing that she was joking, set out to walk from his home in Anyang, China, to her home in Guangzhou, 1000 miles away.

In 2015, Budweiser's Super Bowl ad features a cover version of this song by Sleeping at Last. In the same year it also laid the basis for song "Magna Carta 800 Years", which was a tribute to Magna Carta in the rebooted version of Horrible Histories.

This song appears in a commercial for Lunchables as a promotion for their new product, "kabobbles".
The song appeared in the fourth episode of Hindsight.

A cover of I'm gonna be (500 miles) performed by Mary Leay appears at the end of Pappys Christmas, A Sky arts Short Christmas production.
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Here, you can watch a cover by the group Imagine Dragons:

The song also appears in an episode of "Family Guy", where Peter sings along with The Proclaimers:

These are the lyrics:

When I wake up yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you
When I go out yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you

If I get drunk yes I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you
And if I haver yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles
To fall down at your door

When I'm working yes I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's working hard for you
And when the money comes in for the work I'll do
I'll pass almost every penny on to you

When I come home yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who comes back home to you
And if I grow old well I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's growing old with you

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles
To fall down at your door

When I'm lonely yes I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man whose lonely without you
When I'm dreaming well I know I'm gonna dream
Dream about the time when I'm with you

When I go out yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you
When I come home yes I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who comes back home to you
I'm gonna be the man who comes home with you

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles
To fall down at your door 

Let's now sing along:

I hope you enjoy the song, and remember: