Arranged by Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams. Produced by Bob Clearmountain and Bryan Adams. Associate producer, Jim Vallance. Recorded by Bob Clearmountain, April 1984, at Little Mountain Sound, Vancouver. Mixed by Bob Clearmountain, September 1984, at the Power Station, New York.

In January 1983 producer Bruce Fairbairn asked me and Bryan Adams to write a song for his next production project, "Blue Oyster Cult". In search of inspiration we listened to the band's past catalogue, including their biggest hit "Don't Fear The Reaper".

The signature sound on "Reaper" is the arpeggiated guitar riff that opens the song ...



Bryan and I spent about an hour creating a riff of our own, initially in the key of A-minor. I still have a recording of Bryan and I passing the guitar cable back and forth (click, buzz, click, buzz), each of us trying a different variation as the riff developed ...



Eventually we transposed the riff down to E-minor, later adding a capo to achieve an F#-minor tuning, which better suited Bryan's vocal range.

	45 Sleeve / UK
	45 Sleeve / Japan
	45 Sleeve / USA?

Once the riff was solidified, the rest of the song started to unfold. We spent a few days getting the lyrics and arrangement right, with particular attention paid to the interplay between the bass, drums and the guitar riff.

When the song was complete we recorded a demo and presented it to Bruce Fairbairn, who in turn played the song for "Blue Oyster Cult". Bruce called us a few days later with the verdict.

"They don't like the song", Bruce said over the phone ... it didn't fit the plan for their album. It took 40 years to learn the real story (see "Postscript" below)

Refusing to be discouraged we asked our publisher to send the song to a few more bands, including .38 Special, but they all declined.

"Run To You" was now officially an orphan!

Up to this point Bryan didn't think the song was right for him either. Here's how producer Bob Clearmountain recalls it (from a 2006 interview with Sound-On-Sound magazine):

"When I first heard 'Run to You' I thought it was pretty good, but Bryan was thinking about leaving it off the album. He was writing songs for other bands at the time, and there was some other band that he was going to give that to. I remember riding around town in his car when I first arrived and he was playing me the demos, and when we got to 'Run to You' he said, 'I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this one,' and I said, 'You're gonna put it on this album! It's a great song.'"

Speaking of demos ...

In the same Sound-On-Sound interview it says (presumably paraphrasing Bob Clearmountain?):  In truth, it was a song of simple and somewhat incomplete structure, looping around a hook without ever developing in the manner that might have been achieved by way of greater application during the compositional process.

Huh? Nothing could be further from the truth! 

Our demo for "Run To You" was a meticulously crafted, carefully recorded, concise template of the song, with all the parts in place: guitar, bass, drums and vocal. Once they got together, Bob and the band certainy made it sound better, but the arrangement was already there. The demo arrangement is the arrangement that appears on the album, note-for-note!

Interestingly, Bryan says the track was completed in one take. Bob says it required "about a half-dozen takes out of which the best two or three were then chosen to edit between." I wasn't there, so I can't confirm either way.

The Reckless album was released on November 5, 1984 (Bryan's 25th birthday). "Run To You" was the first single from the album. Decades later the song continues to be an Adams concert favourite, and it still enjoys significant radio airplay around the world.

In Januayr 2024, more than forty years after sending "Run To You" to Blue Oyster Cult, I received the following email from Joe Boucher, bass player, songwriter and founding member of the band:

Joe Boucher: "In 1983 I worked very closely with Bruce Fairbairn when he produced our album Revolution By Night. I know that 'Run To You' was intended for Blue Öyster Cult to record, and the story goes that we turned it down.  I personally never heard the demo you gave to Bruce.  Our manager might have heard it and turned it down, but it was never played for me."