RUNAWAY

There have been a number of songs entitled "Runaway" over the years. Most have been throwaway Runaways that have no musical or cultural significance whatsoever. The first "Runaway", however, unbelievably turned sixty in the early part of this year and is a landmark of not just White American music, but popular music in general. It starts off quite innocuously as a nice catchy rock 'n' roll number with Del Shannon on guitar and vocals. We are constantly sold the myth by the usual suspects in control of our pseudo-historical narrative that rock 'n' roll was invented by Black Americans and arose out of twelve-bar blues. This is, like all good lies, partly true. What is missing is of course the White European folk music element that goes back centuries. After all, Europeans were playing stringed instruments long before they were introduced to Negroes. The lute, the lyre and later the guitar were staples of European music, and then the electric guitar was invented and developed solely by people of White European descent, notably George Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, Doc Kauffman and Leo Fender. Del Shannon is at the top of his game in this track, but then something even more special happens.

"Runaway" was written both by Shannon (real name Charles Westover) and Max Crook, and it is the bridge by keyboardist Crook that changed the whole scope of popular music. Crook had invented what he called the Musitron - a heavily modified clavioline - that would be the precursor to the Moog synthesizer, which in turn gave birth to the synth pop of the '70s and '80s. "Runaway" is therefore not just rock 'n' roll, but proto-synth pop. Looking at it sixty years later, it is hard to imagine just how revolutionary this song is, for, like someone viewing Citizen Kane in the present age, we take the artistic innovations of the past for granted. Sadly, we lost Max Crook in June of last year, but his legacy lives on in the current and very welcome - and very White European - revitalisation of synth-wave. It is also quite astonishing when one considers the dancing girls in the music video - if any are still with us - will be around eighty years of age! It just shows how fresh and original the song still sounds from a more creative - and whiter - America. With the right will and spirit, it can be so again.