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"Run Like Hell" is a song on the Pink Floyd album The Wall. It is preceded by "In the Flesh" and is followed by "Waiting for the Worms". The song is from the point of view of anti-hero Pink during a hallucination, in which he becomes a fascist dictator and turns a concert audience into an angry mob. He sends the mob out to raid nearby neighborhoods that are full of minorities.
The music was written by David Gilmour (one of the three songs on The Wall for which Gilmour wrote music), while the lyrics were by Roger Waters alone. On the record, Waters provided the vocals (except for "Run, Run", in which Gilmour is lead singer). The song features the only keyboard solo on The Wall (although on live performances, "Young Lust" and "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" would also feature keyboard solos); after the last line of lyrics, a synthesizer apparently takes over Waters' singing. Also in the song are the sound of the mob's maniacal laughter, running footsteps, car tires skidding and a loud scream.
This song was originally much longer, however it had to be cut because of the time limitations on the original vinyl record format. Although the lyrics "Run like hell" appear several times in the liner notes, they are never actually heard in the song. Near the end, the same piercing shriek (made by Waters) can be heard, almost identical to that heard during "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" when seguing into "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II".
The original single version and promo EP both contain a clean guitar intro, without the live crowd effects.
Following Waters' departure from Pink Floyd, the song became a regular number in the band's concerts, usually ending the show and going over nine minutes long. One live version was used as the B-side to "On the Turning Away". It can be heard, for example, closing the live album Delicate Sound of Thunder. Gilmour generally played an extended guitar introduction, sharing vocals with touring bassist Guy Pratt, with Pratt singing Waters' lines. In the 1994 tour, Pratt sometimes sang the name of the city where they were playing instead of the word mother in the line "…they're going to send you back to mother in a cardboard box…" – in the P•U•L•S•E video (live at Earls Court, 1994), he clearly sings London. In fact, in his book My Bass and Other Animals, Pratt states that for the final leg of the tour, he replaced the word mother with the name of whichever town they were playing in.
In addition to doing the song with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has also performed it himself on his solo tour in 1984, in support of his About Face album. In Waters' absence, Gilmour would trade lines with bassist Mickey Feat. He also performed the song solo at the Colombian Volcano benefit concert in 1986, trading lines with house-band keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick.
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