“Run Runaway” – Slade (1983) * Written by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea * Produced by John Punter * B-side: “Two Track Stereo One Track Mind” (UK); “Don’t Tame a Hurricane” (US) * LP: The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome (UK); Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply (US) * Label: RCA (UK); Epic/CBS (US) * Charts: Billboard Hot 100 (#20); UK #7.
England’s Slade, the early ’70s glam-stomp hitmakers with merely a cult following in the US, found renewed momentum as elder statesmen thanks to festival gigs in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal early ’80s. They were thus all warmed up to capitalize when the American metal band Quiet Riot turned their “Cum On Feel the Noize” into a top 5 US hit in August 1983. Smartly, Slade got some new material ready, and by April 1984, a track called “Run Runaway” became their biggest stateside hit, peaking at number 20. In context, the key line “see chameleon lying there in the sun / all things to everyone” points to the track’s crossover appeal in a cliquish market—American Top 40, AOR, and alternative rock stations all embraced the tune (whose guitar lines nodded to the bagpipe rock sound of Big Country). “Run Runaway” also tapped into cozy subconscious memories of a protestant hymn called “There Is a Happy Land” (its opening words: “There is a happy land far, far away”), whose third line melody parallels the third line of Slade’s hit. The track appeared on a late 1983 British release called The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome, shaken free of cultural stereotypes in 1984 with a new cover and title for American release (Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply).