Running Scared (song)

All you want to know about Running Scared (song)

“Running Scared”

Single by Roy Orbison

B-side

"Love Hurts"

Released

March 1961

Label

Monument 438

Writer(s)

Running Scared:
Roy Orbison, Joe Melson
Love Hurts:
Boudleaux Bryant

Roy Orbison singles chronology

"Sweet and Easy to Love"
(1960)

"Running Scared"
(1961)

"Crying"
(1961)

"Running Scared" is a 1961 American pop song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson and sung by Orbison. An operatic rock ballad, the song was released as a 45rpm single by Monument Records in March 1961 and went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

"Running Scared" also appears on Orbison's 1962 album titled Roy Orbison's Greatest Hits and (in a live version) on his 1989 posthumous album A Black & White Night Live from the 1988 HBO television special.

Noted for being a song written without a chorus, the verse builds to a climax that, without vibrato, demonstrates the power of Orbison's clear, full voice. It is written in the bolero style; Orbison is credited with bringing this to the rock genre.

While "Running Scared" was an international hit, the B-side "Love Hurts" also picked up significant airplay in Australia. Consequently, chart figures for Australia show "Running Scared"/"Love Hurts" as a double A-Side, both sides peaking at #5. This makes Orbison's recording of "Love Hurts" the first version to be a hit. "Love Hurts" would later become better known in a version by rock band Nazareth, who had an international hit with it in 1975.

Trivia

The song was covered by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on the album Kicking Against the Pricks and by Brokeback on the album Morse Code in the Modern Age: Across the Americas.

John Peel, the famous British BBC Radio DJ who died in 2004, listed "Running Scared" by Roy Orbison as one of the songs to be played at his memorial service.

Preceded by "Travelin' Man" by Ricky Nelson	Billboard Hot 100 number one single June 5, 1961 (one week)	Succeeded by "Moody River" by Pat Boone