- Take It on the Run
"Take It on the Run" is the fifth track on the
REO Speedwagon album, "Hi Infidelity ". It was released as a single in 1981 and reached #5 on theBillboard charts . The song was written by guitaristGary Richrath . "Take It on the Run" was the follow up single behind the group’s #1 hit, “Keep On Loving You ”. Thecover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes has punk-covered this song for their live album "Ruin Jonny's Bar Mitzvah ".This song, unlike "Keep On Loving You" and REO Speedwagon’s eventual second #1 hit, "
Can't Fight This Feeling ", is not apower ballad . It is faster and has a forty-seven second guitar solo.Trivia
*The song is featured in a commercial for the hotel chain
Holiday Inn , when one of the spokesmen, acting as a business traveler in his room, starts singing a butchered version of the refrain with hisheadphones on and inmockery his two roommates begin to do so as well.
*Chicago radio personalitySteve Dahl recorded a parody version called "Better Get a Gun", which made light of then Chicago mayorJane Byrne moving into theCabrini-Green public housing development.
* In the early 1990s, south Georgia band No Fond Memories jokingly referred to the song as "Take it up the Butt."
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