Five foot two, eyes of blue, cootchie-cootchie-cootchie coo, has anybody seen...that I'm (eleven days--criminy!) late again....
With this having been a big hit in the sixties, I was familiar with it just from having listened to rock and roll for so many years. However, I really became familiar with it a couple of years back when I found a Del Shannon greatest hits CD for a dollar at--you guessed it!--our local library used book sale. I played that CD for months on end, as it was chock full of good sixties pop. And I learned a bit about a rock and roll icon who is oftentimes too easily forgotten....
I wrote about Del Shannon in Vol. CDLXXVIII, and since his Wikipedia entry has zero new information concerning the man or his career, I'll just let that original bio stand as my tribute to him.
"Runaway" was the first single Shannon ever released from his 1961debut album, the rather invitingly entitled Runaway with Del Shannon. The single would be far and away the most successful of his career, reaching #1 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and staying there for four weeks (as well as topping the charts in five other countries). The album, as was often the case back in the day, did not chart. Rolling Stone ranked the song #472 on its 2010 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time.
Fun Fact: Shannon re-recorded (with changed lyrics as well) "Runaway" in 1986 for use as the theme song in the television series Crime Story. As the show was set in the early 1960s, one supposes it was a hell of a good choice....
It would be hard to overstate just how far ahead of its time "Runaway" was--and may also help to explain Shannon's lack of another great musical success in his career (not easy to duplicate greatness personified). First, the synthesizer, played by Max Crook (who co-wrote the song with Shannon), was done on a Musitron which he just so happened to invent himself. You can hear the beginnings of rock and roll's future as it screeches its way through the song. Secondly, Shannon's vocals run the gamut from the grim reality of his rock and roll voice to the sorrow of his falsetto in the chorus (the echoing on "wonder" and "why" are the stuff that classics are made of) and are a lesson in the subtleties of vocal phrasing in rock and roll. Finally, the song itself, with its eerie quality as it spins the tale of a love gone wrong, the woman who's gone and the one left holding the bag, helped set the stage for what rock and roll could be and often became--a stage for art that's as large as life itself. "Runaway" is a true wonder, and a shining supernova of rock's early days. Hyperbolic? Maybe a bit, but it's still a great song....
Lyric Sheet: "I'm a-walkin' in the rain/Tears are fallin' and I feel the pain/Wishin' you were here with me/To end this misery..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
