Running

Album: Visions (2024)
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Songfacts®:

  • In "Running," a slow, meditative groove washes over listeners as Norah Jones lays bare her vulnerability, confessing a persistent fear of commitment. She whispers of life's fickle hand, grappling with a love that "could be wrong or it could be right."
  • Jones co-wrote "Running" with Leon Michels, a producer and multi-instrumentalist who played saxophone in Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. He has also performed with Dan Auerbach's band The Arcs, and his own project El Michels Affair. Jones and Michels previously collaborated on her holiday album Pick Me Up on Your Way Down and the single "Can You Believe."
  • Jones plays piano, guitar, and bass on the track and Michels plays, drums and baritone saxophone.
  • Jones released "Running" via Blue Note Records on January 19, 2024, as the lead single from Visions. The album brims with liberation, dancefloor grooves and acceptance, a stark contrast to the introspective shadows of her previous record, Pick Me Up Off The Floor, which she recorded early in the pandemic lockdown.

    "The reason I called the album Visions is because a lot of the ideas came in the middle of the night or in that moment right before sleep, and 'Running' was one of them where you're half asleep and kind of jolted awake," said Jones.
  • Jones collaborated with Michels throughout the entire vibrant and joyous 12-song album.

    "We did most of the songs in the same way where I was at the piano or on guitar and Leon was playing drums and we were just jamming on stuff," said Jones. "I like the rawness between me and Leon, the way it sounds kind of garage-y but also kind of soulful, because that's where he's coming from, but also not overly perfected."

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