Running for You

Album: Wild Ones (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • Kip Moore penned this song during one lonely, sleepless night. "I actually got off the road at about 2 a.m. one night, and I used to live in this really awful building where there were no TVs, no couches, nothing," the singer recalled to Entertainment Tonight. "All I had were some amps set up and my electric guitars, and it forced you to constantly stay in that mode of writing."

    "I happened to get off the road, and I couldn't sleep, and I picked up my guitar at 3 or 4 a.m., and I started playing the opening riff," he continued. "I started thinking about how my life has constantly pulled me away from people that I care about, and it's made a strain on that whole kind of thing - knowing what my life has been and what I'm after, it's just made it virtually impossible to keep something steady."
  • Having coming up with the original idea, Moore completed the tune with Troy Verges and Blair Daly. "We just wrote a song about when you really care about somebody, you wanna see 'em shine, and you wanna see 'em go grab what they're after," he said. "The people in my life have always been really encouraging and wanting to see me do great - it was my way of spinning that and making it about the girl. I think when you really, really care about somebody, it shouldn't be a selfish thing."
  • Kip Moore had filed this song away for a while before he recorded it for Wild Ones. "I almost gave it away to a few different artists that wanted it," he told Billboard magazine. "I've kept it in my back pocket for a few years. They wanted me to put it on the first record, but I felt like I needed to wait for it. I knew it was a big song. I'm glad I did."
  • Kip Moore: "Just because a relationship doesn't work out the way you hoped it would, it doesn't mean you can't wish that person all the best, and that's what I was drawing on in this song,"
  • Moore told The Boot that the song shows what true love really is. "It embodies what the word 'love' should really mean," he explained. "I think, growing up, we use that word carelessly and recklessly: You want to put those people in a box that you think you love. You want to keep a level playing field because that makes you feel secure in yourself. I think that if you love somebody, you want to see them have the moon, you want to see them have the world and have every dream they wanted, even if it's not with you."
  • The song's music video shows Kip Moore and his girlfriend facing the challenges stemmed from pursuing their own individual careers. We see the singer sacrifice his relationship in order to let his lady pursue her dance dreams.

    Moore recruited his longtime friend PJ Brown to direct the video, though he had never been in the director's chair before. "I've been friends with PJ for years, he was the main one pushing me to chase my passion and move to Nashville," said Moore. "He's been able to document some of my concerts here and there, but we haven't worked together on this level before. This song is unlike other songs I've released before and so I wanted the video to be really different from any of my other videos. PJ was able to bring our vision to life and I'm glad that the label let me take a chance on him."
  • The track had one specific inspiration. "That song was originated kind of from someone that I've known for a long, long time - and this was years and years and years ago - knowing that I was coming to Nashville and going after this, and it was knowing that we knew we weren't going to be able to hold together what we had at the time," Moore recalled to The Boot. "It was her saying, 'I want the best for you, regardless of what it is,' and I wanted the best for her."

    "And I think that's kind of where the song birthed from, was that thought," he added. "And then it kind of just took on the shape of different life experiences that I've had, and it was honestly singing about different things in my life, but it originated from that thought."

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