When “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers nearly topped the charts in 1993 it was like it came out of nowhere. So out of touch with the R&B that was dominating the Hot 100 at the time and just aggressively Scottish, it was like nothing else on the radio. And that makes sense, because the song was actually five years old. It had narrowly missed the UK Top 10 in 1988 but was released in 1993 in North America due to its inclusion in the romantic comedy Benny and Joon. That was enough, apparently, and the song became The Proclaimers’ only US Top 40 hit, a song which now has over a billion streams, ten times their next most popular song.
This song is so inextricably linked to The Proclaimers, their accent, their aesthetic, and that music video that it’s really hard to think about it as anything but this weird moment in time when it was everywhere. It feels like a novelty, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, just that singalong Scottish jangle pop songs are not something that usually take over American radio and music video channels.
Menno Versteeg, of Canadian indie rockers Hollerado, decided to try his hand at covering it anyway. Back in the pandemic, he, like so many other musicians, was performing covers. Unlike so many other musicians, he waited until July 2026 to release some of them, putting out an EP of eight cover songs, most of which are very old songs – “I’m Gonna Be” is the only song from the last 50 years on it.
Versteeg begins his cover with something that can only be described as cheeky: a droning bass and what sounds like the opening notes of Blink 182’s “Dammit.” It’s an announcement that Versteeg will not be faithful to the original. He replaces the rousing stomp from the original with that drone plus a pulsating drum beat and a tambourine, played at a slower pace. Versteeg’s guitar tremolos instead of jangles and he gradually adds other instruments to the mix, including synthesizers, guitars and backing vocals, resulting in a dense mix by the end. There’s a guitar solo, too.
One thing is conspicuously absent: the famous wordless refrain after the chorus. This is probably a controversial decision but it’s also one of the parts of the original song that makes it feel like a novelty. Versteeg takes the song seriously even with the opening Blink reference, and the wordless refrain probably wouldn’t suit the mood of this version.
It’s a fascinating and compelling spin that removes so much of what made the original stand out. Have a listen:
