Run for Your Life
Run for Your Life’ I always hated … John Lennon Lennon Remembers (1971)
Run for Your Life was the first song recorded for Rubber Soul. It would later prove the most controversial song on the album because of what Ian MacDonald calls a ‘lazily sexist lyric’. Others have been even stronger in their condemnation of the casual misogyny and violent imagery.
Words
Lennon himself was never fond of the song and was later embarrassed by its words. These draw heavily on the old Elvis song ‘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”
Very wrong call, as it would turn out, but this was forty years before MeToo.
In fairness, though perhaps not mitigation, violence against women in a theatrical context had never been presumed to imply endorsement. Cheerfully singing along to Delilah or Mac the Knife or even The Best Pies in London was not seen as evidence of homicidal impulses.
The problem here was that Lennon was singing in the first person — with no obvious distance between his own personality and the sentiments. He derided ‘Paul’s story songs’ but nobody assumed that McCartney was a menace with a hammer.
A stronger argument for the cancellation court, would be Lennon’s various post Beatles interviews/struggle sessions.
“I used to be cruel to my woman I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit.
On second thoughts, strike that from the record. No, not the offending words from the physical disc — we can all agree that smashing X million copies of Rubber Soul would not be wise (see the Disco Demolition Night).
Recording
Run for Your Life was recorded on October 3 1965 — ‘knocked off’ (Lennon) in a five hour session. There were four takes for the backing track. Various vocal and instrumental parts were then overdubbed.
Ian Macdonald notes a generally rushed and uncertain feel in the initial recording, with popping microphones, ‘badly out of tune guitars and a terrible vocal mix’. These technical issues were later smoothed out in with various remixes — leaving a clean if perhaps cold sound.
What are we left with? Few would defend the lyric — McCartney has indicated the line if I see you with another man was one that came from the darker recesses of his partner’s insecurity. But musically there are interesting aspects.
The snarling energy of George’s lead guitar for example is very much in John’s attacking style (Lennon plays acoustic). Ringo’s percussion adds an interesting dimension, his tambourine is a memorable feature. John performs one of his most powerful lead vocals — proving he could compete with the likes of Daltrey and Plant as a pure rock vocalist.
Another strength is the vocal harmony. This again demonstrates that George and John had an uncanny compatibility. George’s high part sounds as if Lennon is harmonising with himself.
In fact, when beating up Run for Your Life, Lennon mentioned that George was very fond of it. This did not imply endorsement of woman bashing —put bluntly he probably wasn’t paying attention to the words. All The Beatles responded more viscerally to overall sound than lyrical content.
Tellingly, The Beatles would never perform Run for Your Life live on their final tour .
Reviews
On release, Run for Your Life was largely ignored by critics — a ‘filler’ track — a song I just knocked off — on an otherwise excellent LP. This has remained the consensus opinion. Thomas Ward diplomatically suggests that it is ‘one of the Beatles most dispensable items’ while Ian MacDonald is characteristically forthright (‘a dismal track’).
That said, George Martin was known to insist on a strong song to close an album. And Lennon makes an outstanding contribution to Rubber Soul — with Girl and Norwegian Wood being highlights. But in the end (uh!) those lyrics tank the potential for cover versions of Run For Your Life.
Perhaps a rewrite? Stay With Your Wife, anyone? What do you mean it doesn’t sound very rock ‘n roll?
Originally published at https://www.beatlesfaq.com.
