| "Final Distance" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Hikaru Utada | ||||
| from the album Deep River | ||||
| Released | July 25, 2001 | |||
| Recorded | 2001 | |||
| Genre | Pop | |||
| Length | 5:40 | |||
| Label | EMI Music Japan | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Hikaru Utada | |||
| Producer(s) |
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| Hikaru Utada singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Final Distance" on YouTube | ||||
"Final Distance" is a song by Japanese recording artist Hikaru Utada for her third studio album Deep River (2002). Written by Utada herself, the song was produced and composed by long-time collaborators Akira Miyake, Utada's father Teruzane Utada and herself. "Final Distance" was originally recorded as "Distance" which was taken from the album with the same name, despite not being a single. The song was re-recorded, re-arranged, and dedicated to Rena Yamashita, a six-year-old victim of the Ikeda school massacre who had written an essay about being inspired by Utada. Utada had stated that the meaning of the word "final" for the song "Final Distance" is "most important" rather than "last."
Musically, "Final Distance" incorporates more instrumentation than the previous version, including violins, an acoustic piano and synthesizers. The song strips the original pop music from "Distance" and is a pop ballad song. Despite being written in 2000 from the original version, Utada reflected on the emotions of sorrow, pain, anger and celebration of life while recording the single version.
"Final Distance" received positive reception from most music critics, who praised the re-arrangement and favored this version, although some critics felt the song was inferior to her past ballad tracks. Critics have cited the track as one of Utada's career highlights. Commercially, "Final Distance" stalled at number two on the Oricon Singles Chart, making it her first single in two years to have missed the top spot. The song also resulted in being her lowest selling physical singles at the time but was surpassed by her 2004 single "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro".
An accompanying music video was shot by her then-husband Kazuaki Kiriya, featuring two versions of Utada inside a Utopian-inspired city with ballet dancers and a gothic-like orchestra. The song has been performed on her Utada United 2006 tour and has been featured on a MTV Unplugged appearance in 2002.