From a Distance

Julie Gold wrote it in 1985 at the piano from her childhood home, in about three hours. Her friend Christine Lavin passed the demo to Griffith, who called in 1986 to say she would record it, the first time anyone had recorded one of Gold's songs. Griffith remembered that many artists and labels had turned it down and that she loved it at once. She cut it in Nashville in July 1986 for Lone Star State of Mind. Gold has said the song is about the gap between how things appear and how they really are.

Issued as a promotional single, it spent 17 weeks in the Irish top 30 and peaked at nine in April 1988. Her recording led the Byrds, Kathy Mattea and Judy Collins to the song. Bette Midler's 1990 version reached number two in the US, became an anthem of the Gulf War and won Song of the Year at the Grammys, and Cliff Richard took it to 11 in the UK. Jason Cohen of Texas Monthly counted Griffith's among the near definitive versions.

Live

It became one of her most played songs, logged 26 times on setlist.fm from the Bottom Line in New York in March 1987 to York Barbican in 2012. A live version recorded at Anderson Fair in Houston is on One Fair Summer Evening (1988). The upload in the hypersongs web is the 1987 album recording, as issued on a 2001 20th Century Masters compilation.