John Lennon closeupImage via Lionsgate
By
Val Barone
Published 39 minutes ago
Val Barone is a journalist working remotely and specializing in music features. A passionate music lover, she keeps up to date on the latest developments in the entertainment world, and in the past five years, she's written for several sites, including ScreenRant, MovieWeb, TheThings, and Far Out Magazine. She covers breaking news in the music world and loves sharing stories about the classic rock musicians she grew up listening to. As a Gen Z writer, she offers a fresh perspective on the events that change music history.
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Rubber Soul was a defining album for The Beatles. It drastically changed their sound from what they had been doing up until that point, with groundbreaking songs like "Norwegian Wood", "Nowhere Man," and "Girl," and set the foundation for Revolver, the album that many consider their best. However, the last track, a controversial song for many reasons, was one John Lennon never liked very much and would have been happy if they had left it out of the record. "Run For Your Life" is the type of song that would have caused outrage if it came out today, and here's why Lennon hated it.
John Lennon Hated This "Knockoff" Song
Much like the classic "Help," the song "Run For Your Life" has such a catchy and cheerful melody that it makes you almost ignore the lyrics. But the words Lennon is singing are no laughing matter. The song came out in 1965, the lyrics a symbol of a different time, and was inspired by even older lyrics. When asked about it many years later, John Lennon explained how he wrote it and why he was never too fond of it.
“I never liked ‘Run for Your Life’ because it was a song I just knocked off," he explained in 1970. "It was inspired from [Elvis Presley’s] ‘Baby, Let’s Play House.’" Lennon took a line out of Presley's song that sounded good to him and built a song around it, "but I didn’t think it was that important.”
Important to him or not, the lyrics he chose are certainly controversial. The song opens with the line "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man," taken directly from Presley's "Baby, Let's Play House," a violent promise that would never be allowed to air today. Lennon doubles down on the line he borrowed at the end of every chorus, "catch you with another man, that's the end, little girl."
According to Lennon, that song was his "least favorite" Beatles song, and the one he "always hated," but that wasn't the consensus. George Harrison was very happy with the inclusion of that song, most likely because of the incredible solo he got to play in it. For Lennon, it was "a throwaway song of mine that I never thought much of, but it was always a favorite of George’s."
What Paul McCartney Thought of the Song
It's not surprising that Paul McCartney, ever the romantic and ballad expert, felt no connection with the aggressive song. But it was still Lennon-McCartney, so he still gave it his best. Besides, while he admitted it wasn't his style and not something he would have ever written, he explained that he could understand why Lennon would go in that direction. He even suggested that his bandmate might have been projecting a little.
“John was always on the run, running for his life.”
At the time, Lennon was in a famously unhappy marriage with his first wife, Cynthia Powell, who he later left for Yoko Ono. He felt stifled by suburban life, and it came out in songs like that. For his songwriting partner, it was different, as he was living the life of a bachelor, but with the comforts of a happy relationship with his then-girlfriend, actress Jane Asher.
“None of my songs would have ‘catch you with another man,’” he added. “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.” McCartney described “Run For Your Life” as “a bit of a macho song” that came from a moment of unhappiness in Lennon's life.
Indeed, when analyzing the Lennon-McCartney partnership, it's not hard to see the pattern. Lennon's contributions always tended towards the darker, sometimes violent side, while McCartney's were almost exclusively optimistic and romantic. The beauty of the partnership was the way they complemented each other, allowing the other to shine while making sure it didn't swing too far in one direction. When it comes to "Run For Your Life," however, it was clearly an experiment gone wrong, as admitted even by the writer, and despite some high points such as Harrison's brilliant solo, it's one of the few Beatles songs fans might be okay without.
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