The first few notes of Megapenny Music’s single, “Across the Miles,” feel less like an introduction and more like a resumption. There’s a quiet confidence here, a melody that seems to pick up a conversation left hanging four decades ago—a detail about the artist’s hiatus that you can’t help but feel in the song’s DNA. Delphine Savatte’s voice enters not with a bang, but with the warm, lived-in quality of a welcome guest, sitting comfortably within a construction of soulful piano and gentle electronics. It’s a sound that is unapologetically earnest.
I listened to this on a Tuesday, and the piano progression somehow reminded me of the particular color of wet slate on an old garden path. A specific kind of deep gray-blue. Don’t ask me why. The song speaks of life as a journey, and its message—that connection anchors us—is as steady as a landmark. But it’s the line about a willingness to “share the rain” that sticks. It understands that solidarity isn’t about magical solutions; it’s about holding a sturdy umbrella for someone else while you both get a little soaked.
The arrangement itself bridges eras. A classically trained ear is evident in the harmonic choices, yet the production is clean and modern. There is no unnecessary sonic filigree, no frantic bid for attention. It’s all in service of Savatte’s delivery, which carries the track’s emotional weight with a deceptive simplicity. The ballad form can so often feel generic, but here it acts as a clear vessel for an emotion that needs no elaborate disguise: the persistent, patient hum of distant affection.
Megapenny Music’s return doesn’t shout from a rooftop; “Across the Miles” simply states its case as a fundamental truth. It’s a piece of music born from a long silence, and maybe that’s its power. It sounds like something that has had a great deal of time to think about what really matters. After 40 years, what kind of song does one even need to create? Apparently, just one that remembers who was waiting on the other side all along.
