B-side "I'm Ready" Format 7" single | Released 18 October 1984 Length 3:53 | |
Recorded April 1984
Little Mountain Sound Studios (Vancouver, Canada) Genre Rock
hard rock
heartland rock | ||
"Run to You" is a song by Canadian singer and songwriter Bryan Adams. It was released on 18 October 1984 as the lead single from his fourth studio album, Reckless (1984). The track deals with the subject of infidelity, and is sung from the perspective of a man who declares that he will continue to "run to" his seductive mistress over his faithful partner; critic Ira Robbins for CMJ called it a "cheating classic". In the accompanying music video, however, Adams portrays his guitar as the object of desire.
Contents
- Writing and recording
- Release and reception
- Music video
- Personnel
- Rage version
- Track listings
- Other cover versions
- References
The song topped the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart and peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. It has appeared on all of his compilation albums. The single was certified Gold in Canada in 1985.
Writing and recording
After a tour in Asia, Adams started the recording for Reckless. The recording for "Run to You" started on 27 March 1984 at Little Mountain Sound, Vancouver, Canada and continued through the summer. It was mixed on 21 September 1984 in New York by Jim Vallance. The song, written 10 January 1983, became the last song written for Reckless. Adams and Vallance originally wrote the song for Blue Öyster Cult, but the group turned it down.
Release and reception
"Run to You" was released in 18 October 1984 and became one of the most successful songs from Reckless on the American rock charts and arguably one of Bryan Adams's most recognizable and popular songs. "Run to You" was released worldwide on 18 October 1984. It was his first number one on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart, a position it held for four weeks, and it spent an additional five weeks at number 2 (all behind Don Henley's Boys of Summer). It also reached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Run to You" reached the top twenty on the Canadian singles chart and remained there for seven weeks, peaking at number 4. It held the highest Canadian chart position Adams had attained at the time of release and became his third top twenty single in Canada. It was nominated for a Juno award for song of the year in Canada. "Run to You" was released the following month in Ireland and peaked at number 8 and reached number 11 on the UK Singles Chart. It was his second single to chart in Europe.
Stewart Mason from AllMusic said "Run to You" was the first of the album's six top 30 hits, and in retrospect, "one of the weakest of the lot. Although the song has a thundering chorus, the kind that sounds truly excellent blasting through FM speakers, there is quite literally not much else to the song: of the song's nearly four-minute length, over half of the song is devoted to repeats of the chorus and an unimaginative instrumental breakdown that leads into a seemingly endless vamp on the chorus to fade." The long instrumental is indicative of the theme of the music video where the protagonist is serenading his guitar as the object of his affection.
Music video
The music video was shot in London, England and later Los Angeles. Directed by Steve Barron, it was nominated for the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards in five different categories: Best Direction, Best Special Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography. While the song didn't win any of the awards, it has received more MTV Video Music Award nominations than any other of Adams's songs. The English actress Lysette Anthony appears in the video.
Personnel
Rage version
The first notable cover recording was released as a single by English urban dance act Rage (known as En-Rage in some European countries) in 1992. This version did not meet with the same critical acclaim as Adams' version, but, after having failed to chart when released the first time in May 1992, the single gained an unexpected boost in popularity due to controversy in the UK music media about the band's name: they shared their name with a German heavy metal band who had been recording under the same since 1984. After changing their name to En-Rage in some European countries to avoid legal action from the German band, they re-released the single six months later, and this time it peaked at number 3 in the UK (eight places higher than the Bryan Adams version) in November 1992.
Track listings
CD-maxi
- "Run to You" (7") – 3:41
- "Run to You" (12") – 5:43
- "Ease the Pain" (Full) – 5:02
- "Run to You" (Instrumental) – 3:57
Other cover versions
"Run to You" has been covered by numerous artists. The second was an alternative rock version by Lou Barlow on the 1993 extended play album, Lou Barlow and Friends: Another Collection of Home Recordings. A German band named Novaspace covered "Run to You" on their 2003 album, Cubes which was heavily inspired by dance and pop music. The Japanese rock band Nil covered "Run to You" on their 2004 cover album The Covering Inferno. The Norwegian hard rock singer and songwriter Jørn Lande covered "Run to You" on his cover' album Unlocking the Past on the Japanese edition of the album. In 2009 U.K. girl band Bananarama released their own version as a digital pre-order only to their album Viva. Finnish metal band Sonata Arctica covered the song on their 2016 album The Ninth Hour.
The song appears on Flash FM radio station in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
It has been mashed up with Metallica's "Enter Sandman" on YouTube.
Canadian rock bands Arkells and The Reason covered the song together at both Edgefest and the Festival of Friends.