Sunday 22 March 2009

Ultrarunning and AR tunes

Well over a year ago I was talking to Michael, an AR / ultra friend, about those silly songs that get stuck in our minds and that we hum over and over and over, especially when running alone on ultras. Elvis' 'Teddy Bear' is one ofmy personal favourites. I learned most of the words after being stuck with "I don't want to be a tiger, tigers play too rough / I don't want to be a lion, lion's ain't the kind you love enough / I just wanna be, your teddy bear" for more than 15 hours at H.U.R.T. 100km in Hawaii a few years ago. Now at least I can do some verses in addition to the chorus...

We then got on to talking about song titles and their suitability to these long events. My personal favourite is Chris Rea's 'The road to hell' and The Beatles 'Help!'.

Michael put together a list of songs chosed from their titles, applicable to AR and ultra running.

Please add to this list and I'll look at putting together a fun compilation.

  • We're on a road to nowhere - Talking Heads
  • The long and winding road - Beatles
  • Help! - Beatles
  • Do you know where you're going to? - Diana Ross
  • Go your own way - Fleetwood Mac
  • Going nowhere slow - Bloodhound Gang
  • Runner - Mannfred Mann
  • Under pressure - Queen
  • All I need is a miracle - Mike and the Mechanics
  • Run like hell - Pink Floyd
  • Bridge over troubled waters - Simon & Garfunkel
  • Road to hell - Chris Rea
  • These boots are made for walking - Nancy Sinatra
  • I will survive - Gloria Gaynor
  • Bicycle race - Queen
  • I'm going slightly mad - Queen
  • Running on empty - Jackson Browne
  • Raindrops keep falling on my head - BJ Thomas
  • I'm walking on sunshine - Katrina and The Waves (original), also Dolly Parton (1996) and others

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I knew my list of 9000 songs would come in use one day – just filtered out songs with ‘run’ in the title. Use if you want. Judy

Take It On The Run - Reo Speedwagon
Runaway - Del Shannon
Keep On Running - Spencer Davis Group
Nowhere To Run - Martha & The Vandellas
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
Run To You - Bryan Adams
Running On Faith - Eric Clapton
Run To Your Mama - Gary Moore
Take The Money And Run - Gerry Rafferty
Running From An Angel - Hootie And The Blowfish
Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Always On The Run - Lenny Kravitz
Run - Lighthouse Family
Running With The Night - Lionel Ritchie
Run To The Water - Live
Run To Him - Bobby Vee
Runaway Lover - Madonna
Run On - Moby
Running So Long - Nianell
Running - No Doubt
Running In The Family - Level 42
Band On The Run - Paul Mccartney
Young Hearts Run Free - The Wannabies
Running Scared - Roy Orbison
Run Baby Run - Sheryl Crow
Runnin' Down A Dream - Tom Petty

Garth said...

It's not a song, nor is it running, but on long MTB climbs in Granny gear, Dory's (from Finding Nemo fame)"Swimming, swimming just keep swimming" becomes "Spinning, spinning just keep spinning" helps get one to the top ;-)

Anonymous said...

Another one with 'run' in the title: 'Runaway Train' by Soul Asylum. When you're deep into an ultra and its hurting: 'Hurts So Good' by John Mellencamp or 'Where Is My Mind' by Pixies kinda answers the question why you entered the stupid race in the first place.

adventurelisa said...

Lovely! 'Hurts so good' is a great one to add. Hahahaha.

Garth - mantras are great. Mine is 'The more you run, the sooner you're done'. I say it over and over in my mind. Great when I'm being a lazy butt walking too much!

Anonymous said...

"Hello darkness my old friend" from Sound of Silence - Simon & Garfunkle gets hummed quite a bit when trawling through the night.

leo said...

hmm all this happyness has inspired me to post my thoughts on music and running madness. http://leorust.blogspot.com

Leo Rust