I wrote Run Away Baby when I was 14 years old, so the story of this song dates back to my early high school years. I was inspired by what I guess could be termed a collision of hormones and mostly-imagined experiences to write this one lazy summer afternoon.
They say passion is crazy and lust is a sin
We're young and immortal until we give in
I was in Catholic school at the time and had grown up knowing all about "sins of the flesh." I had a hard time believing indulging passionate feelings could bring about eternal torment for my immortal soul... but I also wasn't confident it wouldn't.
Run away baby... run away before it's too late
In parts of the song I am singing to an imaginary person, but in other passages, I am singing to myself. At least it seems that way. I've only really begun to analyze the lyrics all these years later. Something I love about my creative process is that I do not aggressively force my will onto my creation... I think of it as a co-creative process between myself and whatever that invisible force is. Sometimes I won't even know what a song is really about until I've finished producing it and I'm listening back to it for the millionth time, and I suddenly go, "OH DANG I GET IT NOW."
Anyway, there are elements of this here. On the surface, I seem to be telling the young and inexperienced object of my admiration to run away before we can't control ourselves and the innocent child is broken. But in all reality, I was a virgin at 14 (and for a few years after that) who had only been kissed a couple times, and I was the one who was an innocent child.
I'm really having a conversation with myself as the incoming adult personality preemptively waxes nostalgic about the fleeting innocence of the child who must be broken open for the woman to emerge. I like that it's amorphous, but once u know, u know.
I also liked that, from listening alone, it isn't immediately clear if it's 'Run Away, Baby" or "Runaway Baby." Could be either.
I originally wrote this at an upright Baldwin Acrosonic acoustic piano and really had a great time playing the C# theme. I still enjoy playing it all these years later. It's quite fun under the fingers!
I recorded this in logic using the Prophet12. I love the huge fat analog sound of this 64 oscillator beast of a polysynth!! Plus its laser-sharp digital precision with respect to filters and patch memory makes it capable of recreating anything from session to session... I loved being able to stretch synth-tracking over multiple days and easily recall analog patches with digital memory. Absolute dream synth.
Anyway, 80% of the patches are from the prophet, stacked with automated volume and panning to create an immersive undulating sonic experience.
The interplay between digital and analog textures is something I love to explore, so there's also a little Omnisphere in there. I used it to double the music box p12 theme, and it sharpens the sonic silhouette of the C# motif while the fatty analog yummy p12 goodness fills out the rest.
I really wanted that beautiful 80s sound, like the synth notes were big round balloons being blown up bigger and bigger, so I used compressors to shape everything just how I wanted it.
Vocally, I used a pretty standard condenser mic. No pitch correction. I sang the lead in one take, and then did a few takes of background vocals. I made some of the background vocals atonal and throaty/talking-esque and really loved how it came out. I used multiple compressors, both hardware and software, to achieve the kind of vocal I wanted.
The drums deserve a mention. I used vintage drum machine samples and had two separate kiks. One kik for the verse (originally a Linn drum kik recorded onto tape then pressed onto vinyl and sampled), then a second kik (808) came in together with the first for a layered chorus.
I also used two snares and summed them to a bus where I threw some compression, saturation and reverb.
I intentionally didn't use any hi-hat. Didn't need it. But I worked in some tambourine in the end which I felt seemed perfect.
Here is the video: