Anybody remember this one? Today’s classic song of the day is “Run Joey Run” by a guy named David Geddes. Released in July of 1975, this little teenage tragedy track went all the way to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Cash Box Top 100.
“Run Joey Run” was written by Paul Vance and Jack Perricone. Vance was a producer and songwriter who had co-written previous hits like “Catch a Falling Star” for Perry Como, “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” for Brian Hyland, and “Tracy” for the Cuff Links. Perricone was known primarily as an arranger, and he’d worked with David Geddes on a previous project. When Vance and Perricone wrote “Run Joey Run,” Perricone remembered Geddes and thought he had the perfect voice for the song. (FYI, Paul Vance’s daughter, Paula, sang the “daddy please don’t” bits throughout the song.)
The song tells a short but tragic story of a young girl named Julie whose father is upset about her relationship with the aforementioned Joey, and warns Joey that her father is coming to do him some harm. Joey, instead, rushes to Julie’s house, where her father is waiting with a gun. While Julie implores Joey to run, the father pulls the trigger—but the girl runs to shield her boyfriend, with fatal results. Typical teenage stuff.
David Geddes was a singer from Michigan who released a few records in the early ’70s, mostly locally and mostly to little notice. “Run Joey Run” was his first big hit and he had a follow-up later in 1975 with the equally maudlin “The Last Game of the Season (A Blind Man in the Bleachers).” Not much is known of him after that.
Which leads us to our daily bonus video of the day, a dramatized version of “Run Joey Run” that ran on the Dutch TopPop television program back in 1975. I really don’t know what to say about this one.
