SONG #29: Collective Soul - Run

Inducted on January 14, 2015

Coincidentally, there is a stretch of seven straight songs in my Hall of Fame that only have one word titles. I didn't do that on purpose.

This is the second song from Collective Soul to make the Hall of Fame. After the widely celebrated "Blue" album, the band released a critically panned 3rd album called Disciplined Break Down. While I certainly have some favorites off of that disc, it wasn't as memorable as the one that preceeded it. Apparently there was a lot of record label drama that came during the recording. I don't remember how long it took for them to record their next album, but man oh man was it worth the wait for collective soul fans. "Dosage", their fourth album, is what took my fan-dom to new heights. First, you had the haunting cover art. Why exactly is there a picture of a beautiful woman's face partly covered with honey and bees? Wild. But it was the music that sealed the deal for me. From the first track to the last, that album held my attention the entire way through. Really, there are several songs off of this album that I could nominate for the Hall of Fame. "Tremble for my beloved", "10 years later", "dandy life", and "Heavy" are all favorites. But this is not a collective soul Hall of Fame, and so I have to go with the song that I truly listened to and connected with the most.

"Run" is another of collective soul's slower acoustic songs, with a somewhat similar vibe as "the world I know". I definitely like some of the faster paced songs, but they may never make it into the Hall of Fame, because slower songs seem to have more depth and meaning for me personally.

I've already done quite a long build up to the song, so I'm not really going to go to much more into detail, other than to say that it was another one of those Angsty songs that I listened to during my first two years of college. The lyrics contain some typical unique phrases that singer/songwriter Ed Roland likes to throw into his songs.. "Processed enmity" being one example. Anyway, it's a beautiful song that I'll probably appreciate my whole life.

Elements I love: 

- The opening blend of guitar chords and piano.

- The electric guitar solo near the end of the song. 

- The question/response in the chorus: "Have I got a long way to run?" / "I Run"