A door closes, a road opens, and suddenly the room behind it feels smaller than it did a minute ago. That is the sensation running through Ron-Ian Cottam’s “Far Away,” a new single about reaching the limit of a difficult relationship and deciding not to spend another day standing still.

The song has the emotional shape of a departure. It speaks of having spent too long following somebody else’s lead, and the lyric “I’ve been tagging along for far too long” captures the fatigue behind that arrangement. It is not the sound of a dramatic confrontation. It is the sound of someone who has finally stopped arguing with himself.

The chorus gives that feeling a destination. “I’m going away, far, far away” is repeated like a phrase that becomes more convincing each time it is sung. Distance becomes the answer. The further away he can get, the less power the old situation seems to have.

There is a pleasing openness to the song’s geography. The reference to the morning tide suggests movement without tying the story to one particular place. Likewise, “I don’t care, I’ll go anywhere” leaves the destination deliberately undefined. The point is not the town, the road, or the shoreline. The point is the chance to begin again somewhere beyond the reach of the past.

That gives “Far Away” an appeal beyond the details of its relationship story. Plenty of listeners will recognise the moment when staying starts to feel more exhausting than going. Cottam puts that moment into a song that keeps its eyes fixed on the horizon.

The release also carries a personal significance. Cottam stepped away from music for a period after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, before returning to playing and recording. “Far Away” is connected to the music he enjoyed making with his friend Stéphane De Schryver, which makes its theme of departure feel especially layered.

Still, the track does not need its backstory to make an impression. Its strongest quality is the sense of motion built into the writing. By the end, “far away” sounds less like a place than a state of mind, one reached by finally choosing to leave. Have a listen for yourself below, courtesy of Now Listen.