This is about a guy whose girl leaves him, and he is left to wonder what went wrong. A lot of Shannon's songs were about broken relationships. He once said he wrote the words to this about himself because he was forever running away from relationships.
Shannon and his keyboard player, Max Crook, came up with this while they were playing a club in their hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan. Crook played a keyboard called a "Musitron" on the song. (thanks, Jeff - Boston, MA)
Del Shannon (from 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh): "We were on stage and Max (Crook) hit an A minor and a G and I said, 'Max, play that again, it's a great change.'" The drummer, Dick Parker, followed them and after 15 minutes, the manager of the club shouted, 'Knock it off, play something else.'" The next day Shannon wrote some lyrics: "That night I went back to the club and I told Max to play an instrumental on his musitron for the middle part, and when he played that solo, we had 'Runaway.'"
In the UK, this was the biggest-selling single of 1961. (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for above 2)
Shannon re-recorded this for the Michael Mann TV series Crime Story, which ran from 1986-1988.
This was Shannon's biggest hit. His career trailed off a few years later, and he killed himself in 1990.
Tom Petty makes reference to this in "Runnin' Down A Dream." The line is, "It was a beautiful day, me and Del were singing, a little runaway."
This was used in the movie American Graffiti, a film that used many 1950s and '60s American pop, rock and doo-wop songs to create a jukebox-style soundtrack. As the film is set in 1962 ('Where Were You in '62?' was the tagline for the film), Shannon's "Runaway" is an appropriate period song for the film.
The famous musitron bridge was used pretty much note for note in the instrumental bridge to the 1982 song "Goodbye To You" by Scandal (with lead singer Patty Smyth). (thanks, Caren - Detroit area, MI)
The song has been covered many times. Queen and Paul Rodgers produced a version during The Cosmos Rocks sessions, with Brian May playing the musitron bridge solo section on guitar in his distinctive style. The song was an iTunes exclusive bonus track when the album was released in 2008.
