Music Review: Duncan Sheik "She Runs Away"

Duncan Sheik

She Runs Away

Album: Duncan Sheik

Year: 1997

         Duncan Sheik deals with his depressed girlfriend in the damaged “She Runs Away.”

         A gloomy guitar opens the single, setting a cynical tone. His friend asks what her leaving the room meant. He’s asking Sheik what he said wrong. Sheik tells him not to worry about it. Everything will be ok and she’ll talk to him again. Right now, she’s upset. She can get moody and he’s accepted it. He can’t change it about her. (“You may not see the end of it/But luckily she comes around/It isn't what she talks about/It's just the way she is.”)

      In the chorus, she has tried to explain her depression to him. She says she doesn’t feel it all the time but enough. She’s always reminding him not to check on her so often. She’s ok. She has her own version of happy, which may be murkier than his, but it works for her. (“And she says “Ooh darlin' don't you know/The darkness comes and the darkness goes”/And she says “Oh babe why don't you let it go?/Happiness ain't never how you think it should be so.”)

          He tells his friend goodbye and begins to clean up the kitchen. She’s still in the bedroom. The only light in there is provided by the desk lamp. Growing up, he thought long-term relationships and domestic life were these intangible things. They somehow had secrets. He tried pretended it everything was normal. But the more he thought about it, the more resentful he became. She noticed his anger right away. She said for not to think about it so much. He’s trying to create an ideal that doesn’t exist. (“I mystified the simple life/I covered up with consciousness/I saw myself and broke it down/'Til nothing more was left/She saw the symptoms right away/And spoke to me in poetry /"Sometimes the more you wonder why the worse it seems to get.”)

          In the second chorus, he adds she shuts herself down from him. Somehow, happiness doesn’t seem possible anymore. (“And she says…but she runs away, she runs away.”)

          In the bridge, he relies on her to help him through his day. She understands him. However, it’s tough when she refuses to speak to him suddenly, he realizes he isn’t going to have anything better. (“And then you know there comes a time/You need her more than anything/You may believe yours are the wounds/That only she can heal/Then everything will turn around/And she becomes so serious/What she chose to offer you/Was all that you could have.”)

        The third chorus is sung again  (“And she says… but she runs away/She runs away/She runs away/She runs away.”)

        Sheik’s numbed vocals can no longer feel. He thought love was going to be a grand thing and eventually, over time it would cure her of sadness. But it didn’t. Now, it’s left him hopeless and shreds of once promising dreams on the floor.

      The nonresistant “She Runs Away” cuddles with its melancholy and tickles its belly.