If I Run

Album: Slow Me Down (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • Evans wrote this ballad with Karyn Rochelle and Shane Stevens. Of the three Slow Me Down cuts penned by the singer, this is the most personal. "It's about this girl saying, 'I totally love you and I want this relationship, but I'm scared. I'm just letting you know that I have not been loved well in my life," she explained to Taste of Country. "So if I run, or if I get scared, will you chase me? Will you be the one that wants to save me?'"

    "When we were writing … we were just talking about that fact that (when) little girls lose that relationship with their dad and they don't have a strong relationship with their dad throughout their teenage years and throughout their whole life, then they have this skewed sense of what love is," she continued. "And so they don't recognize love in the way that most girls do who have a strong father force in their life."

    "Girls want to be pursued," Evans added. "So this song, is about being pursued and, you know, wanting that man to chase her and pursue her and let her know 'I would never let you walk away.'"
  • Sara Evans' husband, radio show host Jay Barker, calls this the "prodigal son song."

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