A fair few songs from history feel different in a modern context. With years of distance, social evolution and historical information, certain lyrics are, rightfully, unacceptable today as the world demands equality. One of those tracks comes from The Beatles and sounds downright horrifying now.
Recorded in 1965 for their sixth album, Rubber Soul, it’s hard to believe what on earth the Liverpudlian band were thinking when they cut ‘Run For Your Life’. “Well, I’d rather see you dead, little girl / Than to be with another man,” John Lennon sings in the opening line, as a direct and pointed threat to his partner. A track of outright possessive spirit to a terrifying extent, the singer instructs his girlfriend to “run for your life” because, in no uncertain words, he’ll kill her if she ever strays.
The easy way out would be to chalk the track up to just being of its era. However, by 1965, the second wave of feminism was well underway. While the first wave saw the suffragettes demanding the right to vote, the second wave ordered further logistical changes like equal pay but also more conceptual and thoughtful transitions in the opinions and beliefs held towards women. Women wanted to not only be equal but also seen and treated as equal by their peers.
In the 1960s and ‘70s, the UK, especially, was busy with feminist action. Not only were there protests and action to help bring in the right to legal abortions and birth control, but there were countless union strikes made up of female-led workforces like garment workers and sewers. All of this built towards the first official feminist gathering in the UK, as the Women’s Liberation Conference of 1970 brought together the previous decade’s splintered groups.
So, while society was in no way equal, and it’s true that lyrics like this were generally more accepted or allowed in male-dominated media back then, it’s not like the UK was still an unquestioned totalitarian patriarchy like the voice in ‘Run For You Life’ sounds like.
Either way, even if The Beatles had missed out on the many social movements bubbling around them, it would be wild to suggest that anyone with a solid moral compass would ever believe that threatening to kill your girlfriend in song is right or justified. As they double down on the implication with each passing lyric, Lennon’s voice comes to feel more and more genuinely sinister until the bridge sends a genuine shiver down the spine; “Let this be a sermon / I mean everything I’ve said / Baby, I’m determined / And I’d rather see you dead.”
With historical content, this track and its sexist content feel so much worse. By his own admission, Lennon was physically and verbally abusive towards his first wife, Cynthia Powell. Knowing that Lennon genuinely was as violent as the voice in the song makes it feel unforgivable, regardless of how you try to spin the context of the song.
Giving a voice to the belief that women are nothing but property to their men and that husbands or boyfriends have ownership over their girlfriends, ‘Run For Your Life’ isn’t just misguided or aged badly over time; it’s dangerous.
To make it worse, the band only ever seemed to defend the track. Talking about the threatening opening lyrics, Lennon said, “It was always a favourite of George’s,” agreeing with the sentiment. The closest they ever got to renouncing the track was when Paul McCartney called it “A bit of a macho song”.
While The Beatles have plenty of other questionable songs, such as ‘Getting Better’ where McCartney admits to abuse or the coercive voice of ‘You Can’t Do That’, none of them come close to the violence of ‘Run For Your Life’.
