Songfacts®:

• The Lumineers made their mark on the nu-folk genre when they issued their self-titled debut album in 2012, which boasted the hit singles "Ho Hey" and "Stubborn Love." When it came time to record their sophomore album, Cleopatra, the Colorado-based trio wanted to venture into heavier themes while staying true to their minimalist sound. A prime example is "Long Way From Home," which finds lead singer Wesley Schultz grappling with the grief of watching his father slowly die from terminal cancer.
  
  "That is a song about losing my dad," Schultz told The Aquarian in 2016. "He died on 7/7/07 at 7:07am. It was a pretty bizarre coincidence. Only a few days ago it was nine years and I hadn't really written much about it. I felt compelled to talk about him getting sick with cancer. He died from the same thing that took his mother's life, so I think I was just trying to process that. It was a hard thing to do but I've been able to now play that live for people and it's been really cathartic."
• This is also a standout track in the band's catalog because of its 5/4 time signature. "On a technical side it's a song that's written in 5/4, which is a pretty strange time signature," Schultz explained. "It's a time signature that you hear in the Mission: Impossible theme. Duh, DUH, Duh-duh, duh DUH. You don't really hear a whole lot of pop songs that are written in 5/4. So that was a challenge to try to make that sound not strange to a listener."
• The title phrase shows up at the end of each verse, but its meaning changes. Schultz's father is far from his literal home as he receives end-of-life care in the hospital, but the singer finds comfort in the idea that he has a new spiritual home in the afterlife and is no longer a long way from home after his passing. Schultz also copes with his guilt over running away from the situation instead of supporting his dad. "Your time is running out," he sings. "And I'm a long way from home."
  
  "We never really had a song end with the same turn of phrase," Schultz noted. "If you listen to a lot of great
  Bob Dylan songs, 'Shelter From the Storm' you know where he is going with it but you just don't know how he is going to get to that line. With this we use that line 'long way from home' four different times but it means something different each time. On a lot of levels it was a really fulfilling song to write."
• The album is better known for its three songs about ladies: "Cleopatra," "Angela," and "Ophelia."
• "Long Way From Home" was used in the first two episodes of the TV series Lethal Weapon in 2016 ("Pilot" and "Surf N Turf").
• Schultz's father also inspired the album track "Gun Song."