Run Joey Run

"Run Joey Run" is a teenage tragedy song performed by soft rock singer David Geddes. It was a US Top 40 hit which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart in the fall of 1975, and hit No. 1 on the Cashbox Magazine's Top 100.[1] It would be Geddes' biggest hit. He made it into the Top 40 one other time with "The Last Game of the Season (A Blind Man in the Bleachers)."[2]

For the Saturday morning television program, see Run, Joe, Run.
"Run Joey Run"
Cover with lyrics
Single by David Geddes
ReleasedJuly 1975
Recorded1975
GenrePop rock
Length2:55
LabelBig Tree
Songwriter(s)Paul Vance & Jack Perricone (aka Perry Cone)
Producer(s)Paul Vance
David Geddes singles chronology
"Run Joey Run"
(1975)		 "The Last Game of the Season (A Blind Man in the Bleachers)"
(1975)

Story

The song opens with a brief snippet of wordless choral a capella singing, then abruptly cuts to the voice of a female pleading with her father:

Daddy, please don't! It wasn't his fault; he means so much to me. Daddy, please don't! We're gonna get married; just you wait and see.

Geddes sings from first person narrative in the character of the titular young man. Joey recalls the events leading up to a recent tragedy involving his now-deceased girlfriend Julie, an event he involuntarily relives in his mind every time he tries to sleep.

Late one night, Julie calls Joey warning him not to come to her house; she and her father have just had a violent fight about her relationship with Joey. Though not explicitly stated in the lyrics, her father's desire for Joey to "pay for what we've done" and her promise of marriage implies that the couple have had sex and Julie has become pregnant. Julie warns Joey that her father is armed and urges him to run away, but Joey, ignoring his own peril, rushes to her house instead; upon arriving, a battered and crying Julie rushes to Joey's arms.

Julie's father sneaks up behind them with his gun, intending to shoot Joey, but just a split second before he pulls the trigger, Julie steps into his line of fire. Julie falls mortally wounded and Joey takes her into his arms; she quietly repeats her pleas to her father as her last words but dies as she again says "we're gonna get married".

The accompaniment suddenly stops, the choral section is reprised, and the song closes with the refrain "Run, Joey, run" repeated several times before the song ends.

Reception

"Run Joey Run" was released in the late summer of 1975, by October the song had peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It would be Geddes' only Top 10 hit; his only other hit, "The Last Game of the Season (A Blind Man in the Bleachers)" would peak at No. 18 on the Billboard [Hot 100] in December 1975[3] and No. 23 in Cashbox (December 6, 1975).[4]

According to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40", David Geddes had recorded several singles for major record labels; none of them were successful. He decided to leave the music business and return to school. Geddes was attending law school at Wayne State University in Detroit when he was called by producer Paul Vance to record a song that Vance and Jack Perricone had written. Perricone, who had previously arranged a couple of recordings that David Geddes had made with a group called the Rock Garden, remembered Geddes's voice from his earlier records and played the recordings for Vance, who thought that Geddes would be perfect for their new song. Geddes flew to New York City to record the vocals for the song (with Julie's lines sung by Vance's daughter Paula) and then returned to Detroit to begin his third year of law school. Several months later, the song, "Run Joey Run", began to race up the Billboard Hot 100. Geddes dropped out of law school with only one semester to go and re-entered the music business.[5]

Chart performance

Glee cover
"Run Joey Run"
Single by Lea Michele, Mark Salling, Jonathan Groff, Cory Monteith, Heather Morris and Naya Rivera
Released2010
Recorded2010
GenrePop rock
Length2:51
LabelColumbia
Songwriter(s)Paul Vance
Glee Cast singles chronology
"Physical"
(2010)		 "Run Joey Run"
(2010)		 "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
(2010)

The song was covered in the Glee episode "Bad Reputation".

Other versions

Billed as Jan and Joey, Tony Burrows recorded the song as a duet in late 1975.[14][15]

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References
  1. http://98.130.35.56/archives/70s_files/19751004.html
  2. http://98.130.35.56/archives/70s_files/19751206.html
  3. "US Top 40 Singles Week Ending 27th December, 1975". Weekly Top 40. December 28, 1975. Retrieved July 8, 2018.
  4. http://98.130.35.56/archives/70s_files/19751206.html
  5. Kasem, Casey (August 30, 1975). American Top 40.
  6. Flavour of New Zealand, 24 October 1975
  7. https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020-119.01-e.php?&file_num=nlc008388.4036a&type=1&interval=50&PHPSESSID=90gec02fc52bie70noqn18euc2
  8. "Run Joey Run, performed on Glee, was a top 5 single in 1975 | Columbus Ledger Enquirer". Ledger-enquirer.com. May 4, 2010. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  9. Anderson, Kyle (May 5, 2010). "'Glee' Episode Covers Olivia Newton-John, MC Hammer, More – Music, Celebrity, Artist News". MTV. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  10. http://98.130.35.56/archives/70s_files/19751004.html
  11. Bac-lac.gc.ca
  12. Whitburn, Joel (1999). Pop Annual. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research Inc. ISBN 0-89820-142-X.
  13. http://98.130.35.56/archives/70s_files/1975YESP.html
  14. [White Plains Chronicles, June 22, 2018 https://whiteplainschronicles.blogspot.com/2018/06/tony-burrows.html ]
  15. [Tony Burrows – Discography http://www.45cat.com/record/rak216]
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