Its lyrics talk about long-distance relationships, and draw inspiration from Madonna's marriage to British film director Guy Ritchie.

"Miles Away" was released as Hard Candy's third and final single on November 21, 2008, and subsequently added to the singer's third compilation album, Celebration (2009).

Upon release, "Miles Away" received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised its catchiness, introspective tones, and deemed it one of the album's best.

Madonna sang the track on the promotional concerts offered for Hard Candy, on her set at the BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend, and on the forementioned Sticky & Sweet Tour.

[2] For Hard Candy, her eleventh studio album and her final with Warner Bros., she chose to "work her magic" on the sound of urban contemporary music, and collaborated with American singer Justin Timberlake, rapper Timbaland, record production duo The Neptunes ―Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo― as well as Nate "Danja" Hills.

She subsequently revealed that she tapped into the "global consciousness of people who have intimacy problems", and drew inspiration from her marriage to then-husband Guy Ritchie.

[6][9] With lyrics that talk about long-distance relationships, Jennifer Vineyard from MTV pointed out that it's the song that interrupts the dance-oriented nature from Hard Candy's first tracks, and delves into more emotional subjects.

[14][15] Both Rolling Stone's Caryn Ganz and Alexis Petridis from The Guardian opined that the lyrics to "Miles Away" foreshadowed the singer's divorce from Ritchie.

[16][17] On April 21, 2008, one week before Hard Candy's release in the United States, "Miles Away" and other songs from the album leaked online.

[28] In another occasion, Eric Henderson ―also from Slant Magazine― said "Miles Away" is a "genuinely poignant assessment that might well be aimed at both her harshest critics as well as her most demanding fans".

[29] Joey Guerra from the Houston Chronicle opined that "Miles Away" was one of the better moments in Hard Candy, and said it sounded like Madonna's work from the late 1980s.

[30] From Bloomberg News, Mark Beech pointed out a "Ray of Light trancelike vibe [on 'Miles Away'], as she meditates about life on the road".

[31] In more critical reviews, Pitchfork's Tom Ewing wrote: "You won't get ['Miles Away] out of your head in a hurry but that's less to do with its quality than the didactic way [Madonna] delivers [it]".

[33] Writing for the Evening Standard, El Hunt saw "Miles Away" as a "lesser version" of Nelly Furtado's "All Good Things (Come to an End)" (2006).

[40] A similar feat was achieve on Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay chart, where "Miles Away" was Madonna's seventh consecutive number-one.

[57] Madonna sang "Miles Away" on the promotional concerts offered for Hard Candy, which took place at New York's Roseland Ballroom on April 30, and at Paris' Olympia hall on May 6.

[58][59] Dressed in a black ensemble consisting of satin bodice and pants, tailcoat with pink lining, and lace-up boots with six-inch heels, she played acoustic guitar and sang, as images of airplanes and plane tickets flashed on the screens behind her.

[58][60] Reviewing the Roseland Ball show, David Sprague from Variety felt the song, "would’ve made for a nice interlude midway through a lengthier perf, but seemed misplaced at the front end of such a brief program".

[66] During the tour's Boston stop, Madonna dedicated the song to the "emotionally retarded", which Ben Leach from The Daily Telegraph speculated was a "swipe" at Ritchie.