When lovers are separated, any distance is unbearable, from one mile to a million. Lucinda Williams does songs about longing especially well; her lyrics often deal with regret and the passage of time, but it’s distance that haunts “Six Blocks Away,” the opening track on 1992’s Sweet Old World. On an album that deals with a profound loss—the suicide of one of Williams’ friends—the pain felt by the narrator of “Six Blocks Away” may seem inconsequential. He’s been dumped for reasons that remain unclear (“he doesn’t understand why she turned him away”) and is going through the motions of a normal life. But knowing the one he loves is physically close (“he can hear her heart beat six blocks away”) but emotionally unattainable makes moving on impossible. She lives six blocks away, but the gap between them has become as insurmountable as that between life and death. [Katie Rife]
