DEL SHANNON - “Runaway”
(1st July 1961)
The spaceman came to England at the start of July. Any reluctance that might have been felt over allowing Yuri Gagarin, the world’s most famous Soviet, to tour his propaganda triumph was surely outweighed by the simple wonder of meeting a man who had seen and done the things he had seen and done. He was a living, walking piece of the future, a future you can also catch in “Runaway”s shrill instrumental break, whose thin and eerily modulated circus tones bring even more melodrama to an already urgent song.
The gadget that made these piping sounds turned out to be not a true synth but a ‘Muzitron’, and the song’s co-writer had built it out of whatever was lying around, including bits of his TV set. “Runaway” already had a solid gimmick - the “wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder” hook - and you wouldn’t think it needed the Muzitron at all, but its presence makes the song. Its chirpiness has a mocking air, taunting Shannon just as he’s admitted that this is no ordinary breakup - his woman has not only left him but vanished. Then when the Muzitron takes the place of a second verse it makes it clear that there will be no explanation, no hint as to where the girl might have gone: she is free, Del is abject, and only mystery remains. One imagines Gagarin’s minders turning a radio dial in their London hotel, hearing the song, and perhaps frowning. 7
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Anonymous on April 21st, 2006
What a load of drivel. It is simply a great record.
Bruce Sterling on December 26th, 2006
I’ve plowed my way through several dozen of these squibs with growing respect
for the author’s perspicacity, but the “Muzitron.” Wow! I never knew that.
Google on, Mr. Ewing, sir.
wichita lineman on August 7th, 2008
It’s the ultimate fairground anthem, the first record you’d look for on a Wurlitzer jukebox in a forgotten suburban caff. Runaway is all energy and mystery, from the densely thrummed opening chords through its falsetto hook (”wah-wah-wonder”) to the eerie, Muzitron solo (more Laika than Gagarin). The lyric is beyond melancholy - it is harrowing, filled with dread and paranoia; the runaway girl may not even be alive. David Lynch is surely a fan.
It was the kind of record you could build a career on and Del Shannon didn’t disappoint. The existential angst of Runaway became a template that he was still using at the far end of the decade on the ghostlike Colorado Rain. He couldn’t write any other way - the fear and the demons in Shannon’s music echoed the mind of its maker.
It’s a shame we’ll only encounter Del just the once on Popular. As his career started to tail off in the beat boom, he rediscovered his groove with near-miss Keep Searchin’, a no.3 at the end of ‘64. “Gotta find a place to hide with my baby by my side” - the lyric was even bleaker and more oblique than Runaway, the sound newly toughened by the Brit beat influence. The cry of the fugitive, a possible abductor with his (underage?) girl who’s “been hurt so much, they treat her mean and cruel”, Keep Searchin’ ends with a desperate, beautiful, lupine howl of release. Like Runaway, it’s a stone 10.
From this point on, Shannon rarely stumbled until his semi-retirement as a performer in ‘69. Keep Searchin’ had an even more paranoiac sequel in Stranger In Town where a private detective, or maybe a hitman, gets thrown into the equation. On Break Up in ‘65 he’s so wracked and tortured that he can’t even convey his fears in words, resigning himself to losing his girl - though he seems to have zero evidence this is about to happen. The single was a flop (Stranger In Town turned out to be his last UK hit) and Del was devastated. He took boxes of the single and threw them tearfully into a Michigan river.
FT's Pete Baran on August 7th, 2008
More on Max’s Musitron (the Z I think may be Tom’s affectation).
http://go.zibycom.com/members/002222119/Site4/maxmusitron.html
The page finally explains why that Stereolab was called Jenny Ondioline as well! (Thoug French Disco was the best on that EP).