Run Away with Me

"Run Away with Me"
Single by Carly Rae Jepsen
from the album Emotion
Released	17 July 2015
Studio	MXM (Stockholm, Sweden) Wolf Cousins (Stockholm, Sweden)
Genre	Dance-pop synth-pop
Length	4:11
Label	604 School Boy Interscope
Songwriter(s)	Carly Rae Jepsen Robin Fredriksson Mattias Larsson Oscar Holter Jonnali Parmenius Shellback
Producer(s)	Mattman & Robin Shellback
Carly Rae Jepsen singles chronology
"I Really Like You" (2015) "Run Away with Me" (2015) "Your Type" (2015)
Music video
"Run Away with Me" on YouTube

"Run Away with Me" is a song by Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen. It was released as the second single from her third studio album Emotion on July 17, 2015, by Universal Music Group. The song was written by Jepsen, Mattman & Robin (credited as Mattias Larsson and Robin Fredriksson), Jonnali Parmenius, Oscar Holter, and Shellback. Produced by Mattman & Robin and Shellback, "Run Away with Me" is a dance-pop and synth-pop tune with an upbeat production containing a distorted, reverbed saxophone riff.

"Run Away with Me" was accompanied by a DIY music video filmed by Jepsen's then-partner David Kalani Larkins in Paris, Tokyo and New York City, which also premiered in July 2015. The song was only a minor success in the charts, but was met with widespread critical acclaim.

Music and production

"Run Away with Me" runs for four minutes and eleven seconds. Carly Rae Jepsen wrote the song with duo Mattman & Robin, who is credited separately as Mattias Larsson and Robin Fredriksson, Shellback, Jonnali Parmenius, and Oscar Holter. Production was handled by Shellback and Mattman & Robin, who also programmed it. "Run Away with Me" is a dance-pop and synth-pop track featuring a distorted, reverbed saxophone riff. The upbeat production incorporates percussive synths, pedal tones, multi-tracked vocals and cavernous drums. Rachel Seo from Variety said the song has a "galloping beat and soaring chorus".

Critical reception

"Run Away with Me" received universal acclaim from music critics. Spin magazine referred to "Run Away with Me" as "the best pop song of 2015 yet", "an undeniable hit waiting in the wings for its moment", and a "big, bold, beautiful masterpiece". Paper magazine hailed the song as "just as much the pop perfection that is 'I Really Like You'" and "the perfect anthemic summer jam". USA Today welcomed "Run Away with Me" as "a marked improvement over ['I Really Like You']". Time magazine wrote of the track, "'Run Away With Me' marries euphoric Swedish dance-pop with a pressing nostalgia for your teenage years, a time when the littlest crushes felt like time bombs and a time Jepsen is really, really, really skilled at evoking. In that sense, it’s 'Teenage Dream 2.0', right down to a bridge so catchy she has to repeat it twice".

Rolling Stone ranked "Run Away with Me" at number 49 on their year-end list of the 50 best songs of 2015. Village Voice named "Run Away with Me" the 11th-best single released in 2015 on their annual year-end critics' poll, Pazz & Jop. Pitchfork ranked it at number 36 on their 200 best songs of the decade list, saying that "fueled by a yearning saxophone riff and colossal drums, Jepsen gleefully repeats her heartfelt invitation until the rest of the world melts away. "Over the weekend, we could turn the world to gold," she murmurs with a quiet devotion, letting the image of two gilded lovers linger in the air."

Variety's Rachel Seo named it Jepsen's best song in October 2022, writing that its "galloping beat and soaring chorus is the stuff of every coming-of-age swan song for those whose bildungsromane were written, or re-written, during the [2010s], joining the array of tracks — like Lorde's 'Green Light' or Taylor Swift's 'Style' — that have emerged as frontrunners of music written to express something profound about growing up and falling hard. 'Run Away With Me' feels the same played anywhere at any time of day: transcendent, timeless and completely given over to the feeling, with an intentional disregard of whether that feeling is love or its imitation."

Year-end lists

Decade-end lists

Commercial performance

"Run Away with Me" did not repeat the major commercial success of the previous single and only made a minor impact on the charts. It reached the top 30 in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Scotland, and briefly charted within the top 100 in the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia.

Music video

The "Run Away with Me" music video was released on 17 July 2015 on Jepsen's YouTube and Vevo channels. It was directed by her then-partner David Kalani Larkins and consists of guerrilla-style footage filmed on three different continents. Larkins accompanied Jepsen on tour, casually filming a personal footage of her, which later developed into creating a music video. The clip pictures the singer in the Place de la République, Place Charles de Gaulle and on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, in Shibuya Crossing and a karaoke bar in Tokyo, and in New York City where she is seen running along the fountain in Columbus Circle and pointing at the Statue of Liberty from a boat in New York Bay. The clip also sees Jepsen in hotel rooms, airports and on public city transport. More footage was filmed in Dublin, London and Toronto, but it wasn't used in the final video.

Live performances

On 1 May 2015, Jepsen performed "Run Away with Me" during a show in Beijing, China. She then performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on 19 August 2015 and subsequently at The Today Show on 21 August 2015, the release date of E•MO•TION in the United States. The track was performed as the opening song on Jepsen's 2015–2016 Gimmie Love Tour. In October 2015, Jepsen performed the song during season 11 of Idols South Africa at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria.

Track listings

• Digital download (Remixes)

1. "Run Away with Me" (ASTR Remix) – 5:33
2. "Run Away with Me" (Cyril Hahn Remix) – 4:52
3. "Run Away with Me" (Y2K Remix) – 4:28
4. "Run Away with Me" (Cardiknox Remix) – 4:21
5. "Run Away with Me" (Liam Keegan Remix) – 4:11
6. "Run Away with Me" (Velvet Sunrise Remix) – 3:46

• Digital download (Remixes, Pt. 2)

1. "Run Away with Me" (Patrick Stump Remix) – 4:10
2. "Run Away with Me" (Ayokay Remix) – 3:31
3. "Run Away with Me" (EMBRZ Remix) – 4:39

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the liner notes of Emotion:

Charts

Certifications

Release history

In popular culture

• This song was used in the tenth episode of the fourth season of Mr. Robot entitled "410 Gone";
• Jepsen re-recorded the song in the fictional Simlish language for The Sims 4: Get Together;
• The song was used as a lip-sync song on the fifth episode of season three of Canada's Drag Race being performed by contestants Lady Boom Boom and Kimmy Couture.
• The song appears in the eighth episode of the second season of Heartstopper.