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 Arthur Gunter. 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
Arthur Gunter
Gunter’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 liked by George Harrison.
Just a sort of throwaway song of mine that I never thought much of, but it was always a favourite of George’s.It has a line from an old Presley song: “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man” is a line from an old blues song that Presley did once.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
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.
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 The Beatles 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.
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.
Sounds like it. He is apparently using a single drumstick on his snare drum and shaking a tambourine in his right hand.
According to http://www.beatlesebooks.com, it appears that the “slide guitar” sounds were George bending the strings on his electric guitar.
John did later write “Jealous Guy” with more remorseful lyrics, such as, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I’m sorry that I made you cry.”
The content of this song may be pretty nasty, but it’s pretty well recorded and features some great guitar work and vocals. Interestingly, George has the high harmony and falsetto.
I’m fascinated by the high end harmonies. Where do you find the info on who sang them?
A little note Martin must have liked it.under his production he believed in starting an album with a strong song and ending with something hard to follow.its a fact he was quoted in sessions.ie a day I. A life
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 would have thought that George Martin could have convinced John that this bit of misogyny was not a particularly good thing to broadcast to the world.
John always had a twisted sense of humor; look at the stories and poems about death in “In His Own Write” and “A Spaniard in the Works”–such as “No Flies on Frank” in which a man beats his wife to death with his own head. I imagine everyone just saw this song as more of John’s ghoulish humor. Anybody who read John’s books must have realized that he wasn’t a happy-go-lucky moptop. As one critic said of John’s first book, he sounds as though he doesn’t want to hold your hand, he wants to bite it.
“Run For Your Life” I really dig, maybe it’s the tambourine and guitar solo but it somehow really hits me home.
“Wait” I like for its harmonies and maracas. The tambourine just makes it better. I also like the way George uses a volume pedal on it, much like on Yes It Is or I Need You. I don’t know how anyone could dislike it.
To me, Rubber Soul doesn’t have any bad songs. Maybe You Won’t See Me, but I really like Paul’s vocals and the harmonies. And the bassline.
What Goes On isn’t that great but George has some nice Perkins licks on it so I dig it anyways. The harmonies are great too.
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.
enjoyed Johns singing, song writting ect but would not for anything in the world have wanted to be married to the man. i think this song hit a little to close to home and maybe that is why he hated it later on.
First of all, even though it’s ok, “Wait” is the dullest song on Rubber Soul
“Run For Your Life” has sick lyrics, but it’s catchy as hell. Sometimes my friends hear me singing it and they’re like, “dude, what the hell is wrong with you”
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.
From the opening chord on AHDN to the ending piano cord on ADITL the progression is amazing.
I like that connection.
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.
While I’d never say what the lyrics do myself, I do wonder why people have such trouble seeing it as in character.
Not every line is 100% John, particularly the one he took from an Elvis cover!
But it’s also a feeling. Not everything is so damn.. . Literal.
It hurts more because John is beloved and put so much of himself into his songs. But it’s a mean rocker, I always saw it as in character, and that character is nasty. That way it doesn’t detract from the music.
I find it interesting too that not only does it fit the beat but, perhaps as a nod to their Hamburg days, he uses the word ‘ende’, the German word for ‘end’.
For all the years I was a Beatles fan I never cared for this song or its mixed message subject matter. It was a throwaway I mostly skipped fmy entire life. Then last week I was in a butcher shop and this song came on the radio. The vibe of the store immediately changed to a groovy cool. It was as if I heard this song for the first time and it rocked. I was so surprised how much I was digging Run For Your Life. Those damn Beatles … even their inferior songs can catch you… even at a meat counter!
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
I’m trying to think about if listening to this song in the wake of my 2.5 years relationship ending and her now dating someone 13 years younger than her is cathartic or am I tapping into something that I shouldn’t be messing with? I listen to it over and over in my truck, turning it up each time. When I was a little boy, I LOVED this song for the beat and the vocals. Now, that I’m heartbroken that she is choosing not to marry me and take up with a Brazilian guy, I’m hurting. Let’s just say that. John you were wrong, this is a great song.
Dude, grow up, get a life, and get over it. You weren’t what she wanted, she moved on, so should you.
Such empathy. How many great songs would never have been written if everyone had your healthy attitude towards heartbreak.
I’m amazed at the amount of people disliking the song (or even hating it) for its lyrical subject.
I think it’s a great song, the lyrics perfectly match the mind of a jealous man (and I well know this).
It reminds me very much of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer in that you’re singing along to it and all of a sudden you listen to the words and you’re like, “Whaaaa..?” I don’t think it’s necessarily a malicious song — but I was thinking maybe it was written by someone like Johnny Cash and the Beatles reworked it into a an entirely different tempo/interpretation. Perhaps Johnny Cash did his own version?
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was about a serial killer…
Am I the only one who hears a homosexual meaning in this song: “I would rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man….
Yes William, I think you are alone.
Actually, JR, I’m with William. It is grammatically flawed, and actually says that, given a choice between being “with another man” and seeing “her dead,” he’d prefer the latter. For the likely intended meaning, it should be “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to SEE YOU with another man.”
You’re just being a grammatical pedant (not to say you’re wrong!) rather than sincerely thinking it’s a hymn of homosexuality.
The songs don’t all have to be noble and elevated. This song is good because its honest. Although John, or the character whom John is speaking through in this song, would most likely NOT kill his love interest, the words are effective because it blatantly states whats going through his mind, rather than censoring it to be more reasonable.
John captures the frantic, jealous, passion the speaker feels by giving an honest stream of consciousness.
I believe that John always kind of considered this song somewhat of a throwaway. I think that the reason why he said he “hated” it is because of 2 reasons; 1–He lifted a line from “Baby Let’s Play House” for the lyrics, and 2–The arrangement is very much in a rockabilly-type vein, which they were very well-versed in, being admirers if Carl Perkins. Not that that’s a bad thing, but the music was not a stretch for them circa late-1965, it was old hat by then, not too ground breaking. That being said, I’ve still always liked the song. I’ve always felt that it would’ve sounded more at home on “Beatles For Sale”.
Kate… No, Johnny Cash never did a version of this song, although it would be right up his alley (I’m a huge Cash fan/collector also). Cash once stated that he always thought “I’m A Loser” sounded like a Johnny Cash song…
Agree. This song is insanely underrated. I’m not sure how someone couldn’t like this song. It’s definitely not the worst song on Rubber Soul, which is Michelle.
Michelle is the worst song on Rubber Soul? You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but you may be very much alone in it. My guess is that you don’t speak French or play guitar. Or sing. Or love.
I would say that What Goes On is by far the worst. Ringo’s songs always aren’t that great. His best song is With A Little Help From My Friends
What Goes On would probably be the worst song on the album and maybe the worst Beatles song at all – if it wasn’t for Run For Your Life.
I think I agree with many of the seemingly incompatible opinions previously expressed:
1. It is a bit creepy
2. It seems retro compared to the rest of RS. More in tune with “You Can’t Do That” and “I’ll Cry Instead” both lyrically and musically.
Yet I really like it. I like especially the line “that’s the end-duh” in the choruses.
IMO RS is one of the Beatles’ very best albums and this song doesn’t spoil it for me. It’s sort of like being hit with a bucket full of cold water after a bunch of more comfortable stuff.
I’d like to correct on the info regarding the writer of “Baby, Let’s Playhouse”. The writer of the song was Arthur Gunter not Richard Gunther. Thanks.
Thanks Paul. I’ve corrected it now.
James Farrell,are you sure that the line is “that’s the end-uh little girl? my brother and I have had dozens of discussions on this topic.after carefully listening numerous times,we are of the opinion that the line is actually “catch you with another man, that’s the end OF little girl”. we both love this songand place it on our unofficial list of stalker anthems, just above The Police’s ” Every Breath You Take”. It is also lots of fun to sing 🙂
I never thought of that possibility…
It’s “end-uh.”
I’m in complete agreeement with John about “Run For Your Life”. It might be the least adventurous and most formulaic song that Lennon ever wrote. It’s pretty easy to see why George liked the song – it’s rock-a-billy Carl Perkins-style and George really liked that kind of stuff. But lyrically and musically, the song is very ordinary. A commenter above suggested that the song is better suited to the “Beatles For Sale” album. It might even have worked on “Help”. But on Rubber Soul, “Run For Your Life” is sorely out of place. It kinda reminds me of “Tight A$” from the Mind Games album too, which seemed as if Lennon and the session musicians had a lot of fun recording. I don’t get that impression of “Run For Your Life” at all, despite the many similarities between the two songs.
Just one more little note…I used to write songs sometimes. My songs can’t even begin to compare with the Lennon/McCartney catalog, but I have written three or four that are fairly good. One of them, a song called “No Explanation” would have been a perfect fit on the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band record. But Lennon didn’t write it – I did. I’ve also written some very mediocre songs and a couple of really bad ones too. So I can appreciate John’s lack of pride in “RFYL”. It’s one of the weakest songs he ever wrote.
I’ve been listening to both RS and Revolver a lot over the last year, and have recently come to the conclusion that RS is an alcohol album, and Revolver is a pot album. So the misogynistic and violent tone of ‘Run’ fits in perfectly with the behavior of an alcoholic. It really shouldn’t be on the album at all, but it is, and it does fit in a bizarre way.
Rubber Soul: pot and alcohol
Revolver: acid, pot, and alcohol
Both: genius and imagination
Ever since the mids 80’s me and my friends have called “pot” Rubber Soul because that’s when we thought The Beatles started smoking pot. I always figured Revolver as a Pot and Acid album. But they were not always on drugs I bet.
I can live with the lyrics. My bigger concern is that Lennon ripped off a line from a young songwriter who died in his late 40s. And the songwriter Arthur Gunter lived until the late 1970s.
It isn’t rip off to use one line. It is homage.
And even if you want to see it that way, with the amount of flack Lennon got and gets for the See You Dead crib… . It seems to have balanced out.
I do think you’re overreacting though. It might distress you to learn a whole lot of other Beatles lyrics are from other sources!
Why the hate? It’s a rocking little song, the “end-uh” is brilliant, the guitar-work is to die for. You can’t help but love hearing John Lennon describe himself as “a wicked guy”. “Hide your head in the sand” is textbook signature Beatles absurdism. “Let this be a sermon”: signature Beatles religious-themes-hidden-beneath-the-surface. Judge the Beatles by what they did, not necessarily what they said, and what they DID is, they purposely chose this as the outro to their amazing Rubber Soul album. John Lennon says he hated it? Yeah, and I know a certain girl in the sky who toootally had nothing to do with drugs!
As for the negative content of the lyrics: I’d say this song is less negative than the same album’s “If I Needed Someone”. “Run for your life” doesn’t hide anything, it comes right out with the threatening lyrics, which in some sense makes it harmless. “If I Needed Someone”, by contrast, oozes with hidden passive aggression beneath a positive-looking mask. The latter is by far the more ‘hurtful’ song. “Run for your life” is ‘negative’ in the sense of friends punching each other playfully on the arm.
“Run For Your Life” is on my list of unsung Beatles songs. I agree with the comments praising the vocal harmonies and driving folk-rock (or even rockabilly) arrangement. The dark lyrics, dealing with possessive and potentially homicidal jealousy, seem to foreshadow similar songs that Elvis Costello would write in the late ‘seventies. While the words are disturbing, they have artistic merit. This is a cautionary tale, told in the first person, of they type of monster that insane jealousy can create.
Maybe, but you’re being very literal.
It’s not like a common phrase in anger isn’t “I’ll kill you for that!”
Let’s not lock everybody up for merely emphatic speech.
We usually associate The Beatles with love songs and positive feelings. But what’s wrong with a little anger? And which Beatle better able to convey that emotion than John. Better to sing about it than actually do it.
And that is George doing that high falsetto? Really? Listen to how high pitched “catch you with another man and that’s the end, little girl” goes. Wow.
The guitar licks are pretty darn good, too.
Sandie Shaw put out a single called “Run” in 1966. The lyrics could easily be interpreted as the same story as “Run For Your Life” from the girl’s point of view:
As the winds blows through the trees,
it sometimes seems to whispers he is calling me
Then when the rain drops falls on the ground it seems it’s him following me
I don’t stop to see if he’s behind me
I just keep on going he must never find me
He thinks I still belong to him
So I must run
Why assume that the first-person singular in the lyric means that this is a direct transmission to the listener of John Lennon’s own stance towards the women in his life? It seems to me that he’s “in character” here, portraying the kind of man that far too many women fall in love with and then have good cause to regret it. Perhaps he himself *was* that kind of man when he was younger (he seems to have thought he was), but he must have been recollecting this here from the viewpoint of greater emotional maturity if not exactly tranquillity.
The fact that his characterisation is delivered with powerful conviction is simply evidence that Lennon was a fine vocalist (as, for example, Frank Sinatra was) rather than someone who, in his private life, wholeheartedly identified with the explicit message of the song. (Sinatra was actually a good deal less tender in real life than he seems to be in song.)
Lennon probably had to dissociate himself from the song later on, lest he should incur Yoko’s feminist displeasure. It is quite likely that she would have made a facile equation between the surface sentiments of the lyric and the deeper attitudes and dispositions of its singer.
This song, to me, was the last stand of the old moptop Beatles. Everything after this was the more mature, evolving, experimental Beatles.
The John haters up Macca’s backside just drag an example like this out to pile on…THEY TAKE THEMSELVES SO ‘EFFING SERIOUSLY(!) (One-of) the most tangible elements of John’s kinetic instinctiveness and uniqueness as an artist was: HE PUT EVERY RAW EMOTION OF WHAT HE FELT INTO WHAT HE WROTE.
THAT *is* the MOST HONEST way an artist can be. Yeah, there probably was an undertone to Run For Your Life related to John’s (now) well-documented turbulent marriage to Cynthia (combined-with: 1965 being his self-loathing, “Fat Elvis Period”)…HOWEVER: listen closely to stuff all the way back through to, for instance, YOU CAN’T DO THAT and — his SAME kind of snide (BRILLIANTLY ENGLISH) sarcasm is THERE TOO! Another example on RS, though more inocuous, is the line from GIRL: “Will she still believe it when he’s dead?” (after describing the plight of a guy earning all the money…WHILE HIS WIFE ENJOYS LIVING IN THE LAP OF LUXURY YET HENPICKS HIM FOR HIS IMPERFECTIONS). That’s pure “biography” of John taking aim at Cynthia over something they were fighting about at the time (Norwegian Wood, on the other hand, is the “guilt trip” of trying to apologize for it…just like the stuff as early as: When I Get Home; I’m a Loser; Anytime at All; etc. was).
I love the screaming, somewhat-phasey and sloppy guitar sound of Run For Your Life! It’s a rollicking “roadhouse”-type song. I DON’T hear Paul singing anywhere on it. The choruses sound like John and George into the same microphone (George’s thin, throaty voice CLEARLY is the one saying “little girl” at the end of each chorus).
I just love :^( how the sanctimonious do-gooders today (cheating and bullying EVERYONE for THEIR EGOS) get so anal about this song because THEY’RE AFRAID OF NOT BEING “PC”. Most of them play guitar in the basement of their mother’s house and are brain dead from sniffing glue!
…speaking of sanctimony…
I think someone needs a nap….
What about the super-sly replacement of the word “I won’t know where I am” in the first verse with “YOU won’t know where I am” for the final verse? Totally spine-chilling and effective IMO.
Always enjoyed this at the end of Rubber Soul. A strong finish.
I’m curious why no one seems to call attention to the apparent homophobia (or grammatical faux pas) of this song’s first line: “I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man.” It actually says that if he had to choose between having a gay sexual encounter (“be with another man”) and witnessing the death of his partner (“see you dead”), he’d prefer the latter. Sounds like some serious homophobia on John’s part (although it was really Arthur Gunter who penned that dreadful lyric originally).
He probably meant to say “I’d rather see you dead little girl than TO SEE you with another man,” but he didn’t.
Oh, stop it…….
What distinguises Rubber Soul is the lack of fillers. Apart from What goes On, that was a marketing duty, the rest of the album contains a “history changer” list of songs, amongst them, the great Run for your life. The lyric is more cocky than life-threatening. Come on. OK a song is lyrics set to music but you put this song to an African or an Asian or a south american or a european(greek here) or an alien and it makes our heart jump up and down. It’s just a piece of music after all. Nobody knows what’s in the poetry of Schubert lieders but we all love the musicallity in them.
Technically, the harmony in the chorus is build with varispeed in the extreme high voice “Hide your head in the saa-and little girl/ Catch you with another ma-a-an that’s the end-uh little girl”. I hear Paul singing a 3rd above John’s and this bluesy high little voice could be anybody’s. Great lines all the way. I’ve noticed that John’s songwriting in ’65 elaborates this chords in G – F# – Bm. You hear it at We can work it out when they sing “and there’s no ti-i-i-i-me for fussing and …”
No varispeed on the vocals. The three part harmony is on one track, therefore recorded at the normal speed. The chorus starts with John singing the lead and Paul singing a 3rd above him in full voice, as you say. Then George joins them singing in high falsetto. They did this “trick” with George singing the highest part in falsetto from time to time. E.g. chorus for Help! and Day Tripper.
Well, everyone’s got an opinion. Here’s mine: I agree with those that say the song sounds a little out of place on RS, especially the American version. It does sound like a throwback. As a kid, getting to know their songs in the mid-1970s, this one never bothered me too much, because it was common to say, “I’m gonna kill him…” or whoever, when you just meant you were mad at someone and were going to have words with them or beat ’em up (if it was my brother). It was just a figure of speech, like “Drop dead!,” etc. It wasn’t until – I don’t know – the 90s or so (?), when the world got a lot stalkier and women were a lot less shy about saying, “hey! that’s not cool” that people started feeling squicky about this song – seems to me. None of John’s songs that had those threats gave me pause. Now that I know a bit more about him, yeah, it’s a little weird, but maybe he was just working out some issues. The other guys didn’t object too strongly, apparently. I think the point someone made above, about Hey Joe, is well taken, and at the time of their release, songs with these types of sentiments probably weren’t a big deal. Anyway, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find alot of female fans, particularly modern-day ones, that dig this song. It can be appreciated musically, but those lyrics might just make you give it a pass. I skip it, anymore.
It’s a pretty weak song, and there’s no denying that it’s nasty lyrically. Yes, I do like George’s Chet Atkins-like guitar licks on the song; that’s the one positive part of it. But this number combined with “What Goes On” do prevent ‘Rubber Soul’ from being a perfect album. It makes me question the judgment of the band not to put their singles of the time on any of the official, UK versions of their albums. Imagine (no pun intended) how much stronger ‘Rubber Soul’ would sound if you eliminated “What Goes On” and “Run for Your Life” and substituted “Day Tripper” and “We Can Work It Out”. Same thing with ‘Revolver’ – if you eliminated “Love You To” and “Yellow Submarine” and substituted “Paperback Writer” and “Rain”, it would be an even better album than it already is. So, point being, even though I understand the Beatles’ conclusion that leaving their singles of the day off their albums of the day was to give the fans more bang-for-the-buck, I question whether it was the right decision from a musical standpoint. Oh well.
One more thing about “Run for Your Life” – I wonder why this song bothers me lyrically whereas “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, which is equally nasty, does not. Probably because Paul sings “Maxwell’s” in a sly, cutesy kind of vocal, whereas John really sounds like he means it. I guess that’s a credit to John’s vocal performance on the song to be that convincing.
Unless I’m mistaken, this is the first Beatles song that uses slide guitar throughout. It’s like a first position ‘A’ chord, but played on the 5th -7th (C to D), twice at the start of each verse, then on the 10th-12th (F to G) and 12th-14th frets (G to A) during the solo. Standard tuning. Simple but effective.
The solo in “Drive My Car” ends with about six slide notes played on electric guitar, so you could say that “Rubber Soul” opens and closes with songs featuring slide guitar. Very cool, especially for late 1965.
I agree that this is definitely one of the weakest songs on “Rubber soul.” It covers the same territory as “You Can’t Do That,“ and “I’ll Cry Instead,” which are both much better songs I think. Still, I always heard it as so over-the-top that it’s intended as parody of macho attitudes. Sort of a musical version of the mad scientist leer they all had on the “butcher” cover of “Yesterday and Today.” Maybe even a little bit of a James Bond goof as well – “SOS (Stop her on Sight.)” Merle Haggard had a similar song around the town called “I’m Gonna Break Every Heart I Can.”
So.. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an incredibly huge Beatles fan, but I can’t help be surprised at how little people react to this one online. This is a weirdly messed up song. I don’t really agree with all the justifications I’ve seen, like “it’s a figure of speech, just like the saying ‘drop dead'” or that he’s playing a character because there are some parts of it that go too far to make that seem reasonable. He literally says “I mean every word I’ve said… I’m determined that I’d rather see you dead.” I mean, how much clearer can you be?
It’s just not something that should be brushed off so lightly, this is a brutally messed up song, and if someone wrote a song like this today, there would most definitely be some pretty stiff backlash. Now does that mean that John Lennon was a bad person? Or that you shouldn’t enjoy the Beatles? Nope. It doesn’t. But artists need to be conscious of both the meaning their song conveys, and the meanings their audience could take away from it. If John actually wrote this song as a joke, or if it was about a particularly misogynistic character, he made the mistake of not contextualizing it in a way to make that clear to his audience. His reaction to it later is kind of sad too, he never condemned the lyrics or explained them, besides pointing to their inspiration and dismissing it as a “throw away”. This song gives many people whiplash when they hear it for the first time at the end of Rubber Soul. It’s not just a somewhat possessive song from an older day, it’s literally threatening murder. How do you think Lennon’s wife might have reacted to hearing this at the time?
Please by all means, enjoy the Beatles, but let’s be more honest and willing to condemn this cruel song that seems to take pleasure in abuse.
While I agree with alot of what you say, I think the part about contextualizing it a bit much to ask for the time of the song. 1965 isn’t 2021. They had no clue these lightweight pop songs would still be around anyway. John didn’t do “character songs,” but I also don’t think he necessarily felt this, though he may have. Maybe I’m being naive, but back in the late 60s and 70s, “drop dead” and “I’m going to kill him,” were indeed figures of speech and weren’t taken literally. John seems to cross the line a little bit though with that “I mean every word I said” line. This song didn’t bother me as a kid, but it does now a little bit (I’m a woman), and I usually skip it. It rocks, though, for sure. I agree…sounds out of place on Rubber Soul though. They must have been in a rush to get the LP out. They were great; they were also commercial and in a hurry some times. John’s disavowing it is good enough for me.
But hey, look on the bright side, Nancy Sinatra covered the song and when sung by a woman the song is transformed into all things liberated and righteous!
Come on, let’s not be all sanctimonius all of a sudden. Do you remembre this one ?
” We’re all alone and there’s nobody else, You still moan – Keep your hands to yourself !! – ”
Anybody knows who wrote this song and when ?
It always seemed unfair that Lennon writes a plethora of abject adoration songs but gets labeled according to one song built around a snippet of lyric from an old Elvis song. Jealous rage is part of the wide romantic spectrum. “Run For Your Life” could be sung by either sex; the sentiment is universal. Nancy Sinatra’s cover sounds seriously threatening. No one objects when a woman sings it.
John’s singing is stunning! John and Paul were both able to go deep “in character” when they sang, and to me, John’s channeling a kind of “horror movie” character. It’s chilling! But hostility toward men is accepted; hostility toward women is not. And so, few are able to assess Run For Your Life “objectively.” Objectively, it’s an emotionally charged rocker superbly performed that well serves as a dramatic closing track for Rubber Soul.
Has anyone else noticed the literal meaning of “… than to be with another man”?
I’m 100% sure that Lennon didn’t mean to imply that he’d rather see his girlfriend dead than have sex with a man (himself), and I suspect that, even if was aware of this possible interpretation, he would have been prepared to accept the possible double meaning in favour of the rhythm. Had he dropped the unnecessary words, “to be”, the punchy rhythm would have been lost in this line. Although it is generally acknowledged that both Lennon and McCartney avoided meaningless “filler words” to take up the beat, this appears to be an exception.