Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 12 October 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 3 December 1965 (UK), 6 December 1965 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Paul McCartney: harmony vocals, bass
George Harrison: harmony vocals, lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine
Available on:
Rubber Soul
The song with which The Beatles began the Rubber Soul sessions, John Lennon's Run For Your Life was based around a line from an Elvis Presley song.
Baby, Let's Play House, recorded by Presley in 1955, had been written the previous year by a 28-year-old songwriter called Richard Gunther. It was loosely based upon I Want To Play House With You, a 1951 country and western hit for Eddy Arnold, written by Cy Coben.
Now listen to me baby
Try to understand
I'd rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
Now babyCome back, baby, come
Come back, baby come
Come back, baby
I wanna play house with you
Richard Gunther
Gunther's song was a fairly straightforward statement of desire. Lennon, meanwhile, took the words and turned them into a menacing threat full of possessiveness and jealousy.
I never liked Run For Your Life, because it was a song I just knocked off. It was inspired from - this is a very vague connection - from Baby Let's Play House. There was a line on it - I used to like specific lines from songs - 'I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man' - so I wrote it around that but I didn't think it was that important.
Rolling Stone, 1970
Lennon later expressed his dislike of the song, saying he "always hated" Run For Your Life. In 1973 he described it as his "least favourite Beatles song", although he did claim that it was one of George Harrison's favourites.
The lyrics recall Lennon's previous excursions into misogyny, I'll Cry Instead and You Can't Do That, both from A Hard Day's Night.
John was always on the run, running for his life. He was married; whereas none of my songs would have 'catch you with another man'. It was never a concern of mine, at all, because I had a girlfriend and I would go with other girls; it was a perfectly open relationship so I wasn't as worried about that as John was. A bit of a macho song.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
In the studio
Run For Your Life was recorded on 12 October 1965, the first session for the Rubber Soul album. After four incomplete attempts they recorded the backing track on the fifth take.
Onto this they overdubbed tambourine, acoustic guitar, electric guitars and backing vocals. The session took four and a half hours from start to finish.
Related articles:
- Recording: If I Needed Someone, In My Life
- Wait
- Recording: Run For Your Life, Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
- If I Needed Someone
- You Won't See Me
Basic Track:
1) acoustic guitar (John), electric guitar (George), bass (Paul),
snare drum and tambourine (Ringo)
Overdubs:
2) lead vocal by John, harmony vocals by Paul and George
3) additional backing vocals by John, Paul and George
4) electric guitars (George, lead for breaks and first ending; John, rhythm; both play on the duet and coda)
Hey, I don't think you're totally correct here. John didn't play any electric guitar. They did a straight take with John on the acoustic, and George did all of the overdubs.
Also, did Ringo just hit the snare? I find that hard to believe that he wasn't on the high-hat or bass drum at all. The drums are just so low in the mix that it sounds only like the snare is being played.
For once, I agree with John's criticism of his own work. If not for this song, "Rubber Soul" would be a perfect album. The previous song, "Wait," which (IMO) was the second weakest song on the album, is twice as good as this song...
I agree. Not of my favorites either. I tolerate. Such an odd song at the tail of such a groundbreaking album. I guess what "Run For Your Life" does is kind of lighten up a rather introspective album. It's there, we're Beatles fans, and we just learn to live with it! =)
I feel like once in a while John would just come up with a song to see what he could get away with...and his voice is so good on this song that they definately get away with the rather malicious lyrics. Is this a weak song? Absolutely not, but compared with the rest of Rubber Soul? I guess it's not the worst thing to be the "worst" song on the tightest sounding album of all time.
Oh but that is the pure beauty of their music. They, especially John, would just throw whatever they could out in the studio. Prime examples; Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/ The End - Wild Honey Pie - Benefit of Mr. Kite - Dig It - there's too many to name.
I find myself playing some of their songs to realize they aren't really even "songs" in the traditional sense.
They had something really special that no one else has ever been able to replicate, and why would you?
Such a creepy song. The lyrics always make me think of old blues songs, but even more overt and aggressive.
I heard a rumor at a record fair that this song and Norwegian Wood were part of a group of 5 or 6 songs in the same vein that were either never recorded or just not released. They all got cut except Run for Your Life and Norwegian Wood, which made it onto Rubber Soul. People were saying it was a whole weird series of songs by John that had really possessive lyrics, mostly about his wife. Also, supposedly John didn't want these songs on Rubber Soul, but George really pushed for them, because he really liked the way they turned out. Does anyone have any more info on this, like song titles, or where I could find copies of these songs or any information at all? I love Norwegian Wood and Run for Your Life and would like to hear more like them. Thanks!!!
For anyone that's interested, I found part of an answer. On the German import of the Live at the BBC recordings the songs 'Set Free' and 'The Good Doctor' are two of the songs that were supposedly to be on the unreleased album that was scrapped. They're listed as 'previously unreleased,' along with 'I Got to Find my Baby' and 'Honey Don't.' I'm dying to hear these songs, but the record is a little out of my price range. Does anyone know where I can LEGALLY download this BBC import version as mp3s? I'm not interested in any shady websites, but I don't see them listed on iTunes. Help! Otherwise, I'll just keep searching record fairs and Ebay.
Horrible song. I tolerated it until I realised that Lennon probably would have done this to Cynthia if she cheated
People often cite "Tomorrow Never Knows" as the song that The Beatles used to fully cut ties with their 'jelly babies' songs of Beatlemania and it was just that. But just as that was the last track of 'Revolver' and left listeners in awe, "Run For Your Life" served up the same level of shock to fans eight months earlier. If you juxtapose songs like "All My Loving", "And I Love Her", or "I Should Have Known Better" against this song - the difference is clearly night and day. 1963 - "Close your eyes and I'll kiss you" 1965 - "Baby I'm determined and I'd rather see you dead" Equally as jaw-dropping at the time as the final piano chord of "A Day In The Life" many months later.
This is one of my favorites. It's underrated - get over the lyrics as poetry and enjoy the song as a great piece of folk-rock Beatles music!
I agree with Matt. An underrated song. I lot of people dislike it because John, in one of his passive moods, said he hated it. He liked it well enough at one point to deliver one of his finest vocals. Many rock songs have the same sentiment. You never hear anyone complain about "Hey Joe" where the guy actually killed the girl. If you asked John at another time he probably would have said it was his favorite song on Rubber Soul.
The music is great and the lyrics are awesome. I don´t want to be misogyn, but sometimes women hurt us so much, and it was John´s case and my case too, so I don´t understand why you hate the song. Very underrated in my opinion