Run Joey Run

"Run Joey Run"
Cover with lyrics
Single by David Geddes
Released	1975
Recorded	1975
Genre	Pop rock
Length	2:55
Writer(s)	Paul Vance & Jack Perricone (aka Perry Cone)
Producer(s)	Paul Vance

"Run Joey Run" is a teenage tragedy song performed by soft rock singer David Geddes. It was a U.S. Top 5 hit which peaked at #4 in the fall of 1975.

Story

The song opens with a female pleading with her father:
"Daddy, please don't -- it wasn't his fault. He means so much to me!
"Daddy, please don't: we're gonna get married; just you wait and see."

Geddes sings from first person narrative in the character of the titular young man. Joey recalls the events leading up to a recent tragedy involving his girlfriend Julie, which he relives in his mind every time he tries to sleep.

Late one night, Julie calls Joey warning him not to come to her house; she and her dad have had a fight about their relationship, and it turned violent. It is not explicitly stated, but her father's desire for Joey to "pay for what we've done" clearly implies that the young couple have had sex, and perhaps that Julie is pregnant because of it. Julie warns Joey that her father is armed, and urges him to get safely away, but he instead rushes to her home. He finds her with a bruised face, and she tearfully rushes to his arms.

Julie's father sneaks up behind Joey, intending to shoot him. But as he pulls the trigger Julie sees him and steps into his line of fire. Julie is hit instead of Joey, and her last words as she lies dying in his arms are a repeat of the opening, but ending before she can speak the last five words, "just you wait and see". The song ends with a reprise of the chorus: "Run Joey, run Joey, run...."

Reception

"Run Joey Run" was released in the late summer of 1975, by October the song had peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It would be Geddes' only Top 10 hit; his only other hit would barely pierce the Top 20 two months later.

According to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40", David Geddes had recorded several singles for major record labels; none of them were successful. He decided to leave the music business and return to school. Geddes was attending law school at Wayne State University in Detroit when he was called by producer Paul Vance to record a song that Vance and Jack Perricone had written. Perricone, who had previously arranged a couple of recordings that David Geddes had made with a group called the Rock Garden, remembered Geddes's voice from his earlier records and played the recordings for Vance, who thought that Geddes would be perfect for their new song. Geddes flew to New York City to record the vocals for the song (with Julie's lines sung by Vance's daughter Paula) and then returned to Detroit to begin his third year of law school. Several months later, the song, "Run Joey Run", began to race up the Billboard Hot 100. Geddes dropped out of law school with only one semester to go and re-entered the music business.^[1]