Six Degrees Of Separation

Album: #3 (2012)
Charted: 32
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Vocalist and The Voice UK coach Danny O'Donoghue found himself in the papers when he split with Lithuanian model Irma Mali after four years together and was subsequently linked to Voice runner-up Bo Bruce. This song, is about his painful break-up, which he told The Sun was a huge learning process for him in how to deal with the public and media. He explained: "This is the band's first time of dealing with the spotlight. I've been asked why I let the rumours go on for so long. But there's no handbooks on how to deal with this, plus I was grieving. My relationship had ended."
  • The song title refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away from any other person on Earth. The phrase was coined by an American academic, Stanley Milgram, after his "small world experiment" in 1967 in which he sent several packages to 160 random people living in Omaha, Nebraska, asking them to forward the packet only to others they knew by name. The aim was to get it, eventually, to a set final individual, a stockbroker from Boston, Massachusetts. The average number of times it was passed on, he said, was six. Hence, the six degrees of separation.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Boy Bands

Boy BandsFact or Fiction

From NKOTB to 1D, how well do you know your boy bands?

Who Did It First?

Who Did It First?Music Quiz

Do you know who recorded the original versions of these ten hit songs?

Early Days of MTV

Early Days of MTVFact or Fiction

If you can recall the days when MTV played videos, you know that there are lots of stories to tell. See if you can spot the real ones.

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New York

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New YorkSong Writing

Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.

Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles

Timothy B. Schmit of the EaglesSongwriter Interviews

Did this Eagle come up with the term "Parrothead"? And what is it like playing "Hotel California" for the gazillionth time?

Timothy B. Schmit

Timothy B. SchmitSongwriter Interviews

The longtime Eagle talks about soaring back to his solo career, and what he learned about songwriting in the group.