My 'Runaway' story.

 ‘A special song for me, and I'm sure for many of you, is Runaway,’ Ziggy Alberts’s newsletter reads. Glowing white Times New Roman on a black backdrop.

‘And it's hard to believe it's almost 10 years since that track came out.’

Ten years? I’m baffled. I realise I was definitely late to the party nobody invited me to. It wasn’t quite ten years ago I discovered this guy, his mullet and those dulcet tones. When did I? I start to reflect before he does —

‘I’ve been reflecting on the journey this song has taken me on over the past decade… and if Runaway has resonated with you in any way, I’d love to hear your story.

What’s your Runaway story?

Where were you when you first heard it? Has it been there for you in a certain moment - or carried you through something you didn’t expect?’

— wow, I was ahead of his curve. Alright then, friend, I say in my head. This moustached mullet-rocking ever-musing surfer dude from Byron Bay (who’d have thought?) posed the question, but do I actually know the answer?

image from here.

I know he was another person’s close confidant before he was mine. Oh wow, this got parasocial. My apologies. What I meant was, I first saw his name in someone else’s Spotify search history. I can’t remember who, but I have a secret suspicion it was my friend Tom, whose music tastes are vast but somehow at the same time very particular, and I trust them completely. I might have been looking over his shoulder in a literal sense, and looking for a way to connect — as I am always, with everyone — in another.

‘Runaway’ made me think of my relationship when I first heard it, and not in a good way. It made me face the facts and feelings I’d been trying to hide from.

I kept my guard up because you let me down… you can’t blame that I wasn’t always around.

I was always around, and he was always letting me down. Not long after hearing that, properly hearing it, I got a tattoo on my right wrist of a lonely yet hopeful sprig plucked from a larger plant, in my head, to remind me whenever I checked my watch or looked down at my keyboard that I could grow and go on alone.

My next (now ex-) boyfriend sang along to the song with me, as we drove (he always drove) from place to place. He was always incredibly efficient at learning lyrics but never quite absorbing the meanings. His favourite song changed with the tides, and he tried to listen to a new album each week as per a social media challenge he’d taken on for no real reason other than to prove something to nobody. I fantasised about taking him to see the singer-songwriters I’d fallen hard for in my teenage years watching American sitcoms that boasted the most melancholic soundtracks, and in doing so sharing my most secret heart — Joshua Radin, Cary Brothers, Dashboard Confessional. I managed to take him to see my most beloved, Dallas Green, at a former milk factory venue in Amsterdam, where the tickets and the flight cost less than it would have just to see him in London (I went to that gig as well anyway, with Dad, on a night when there was a hurricane threat). This ex didn’t care for the music — or me, by then — but that was okay, because he could busy himself by getting us drinks throughout the show and I’d already accompanied him to the Heineken brewery that day, so we were almost even.

When he left, I listened to ‘Runaway’ with dried salt in my ears. The chorus had never got me, or hurt me, more than it did then.

Somewhere in between and almost overlapping these loves, I had a something that felt different. It wore Hawaiian shirts, a thin veil of drunk familiarity, and sunglasses indoors. In the thick of this questionably-dressed in-between, we lived the exact moment at the door to my old flat with the highest cobwebbiest ceilings in town;

And it was late when I dropped you home ‘cause we were sober
And you said "Well, why don't you stay?"

I said "Love, it's just a little late for you to be seeing me this way".

I wish I’d had the strength to say what the hero of the song sang. Instead there was clumsy keys in locks, pink gin poured into glasses balanced on the arms of the sofa, fat lime wedges kissing the ice and misplaced bubbles on lips. I may always wonder what would have happened if I’d said what was real, the illegal truth — it was too late.

…I remember how you said that sometimes it gets just a little hard being alone
There's sand stuck in my head and memories of us in bed

See love I'm still trying to let this whole thing go.’

I’m sure I’ll never let that secret run away.

So, that’s my story, Ziggy. I hope you get hundreds of email replies that show you time and time again just how much you and your words mean to people all over the planet — across the seas you sing about with so much heart and soul. And although not all of your songs will find new meanings and conjure the most vivid memories for me like this one does, your voice will always remind me of home.

Thank you for reading. This was copied over from my new Substack; you should subscribe.

G. x