Music Blog

Which Song Is Better?

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Thursday Inspiration #269
Run For Your Life. Here’s my spin on things.

Today in Thursday Inspiration, Jim Adams featured “Run For Your Life”, a great song by the Beatles. As I was listening, I began to wonder if any other group had done a cover of the song. Good old Wikipedia tells us that in 1966 Nancy Sinatra released her version on her “Boots” album. Unfortunately for Nancy, her song didn’t do too well on the charts. Another version from ‘66 was recorded by Gary Lewis & the Playboys on their album, She’s Just My Style. Singer Johnny Rivers and a group known as The Harbour Lites also covered the song, again in 1966. All these cover songs reminded me of a month-long feature I did back in February, 2024 called Feb Fab Faux Four. The idea behind FFFF was  to play a different Beatles song every day of the month along with a cover version and have my readers decide which one they liked better .… the original or the cover. With that in mind, let’s listen to the Beatles performing “Run For Your Life” and a couple of covers.

Here’s the original.

Next up is Gary Lewis & the Playboys.

This is Nancy Sinatra with her version.

Here are The Harbour Lites.

And lastly, this is Johnny Rivers.

Now that you’ve listened to all the different versions, which one is your favorite? I know which one I prefer!

Thank you to Jim Adams for today’s inspiration. Thanks to all of you for stopping by for a look and a listen. See you on the flip side. 😎


NAR©2025

Thursday Inspiration #269 Run For Your Life

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶, The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, The Rhythm Section, et al., and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

25 thoughts on “Which Song Is Better?”

  1. I’d say it’s a tie between Gary Lewis and Johnny Rivers. The Harbour Lights did all right, but the song didn’t withstand the sex change it got from Nancy Sinatra (normally a favorit singer of mine).

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  5. Let’s see, first I like the Beatles best. But what a creepy song it is, a psycho contemplating murder, threatening a girl. I’d get as far away as I could from this monster!

    Nancy’s song – hahaha I can’t stand when singers change the gender in a song, sounds so stupid.

    Gary Lewis one is good, Harbour Lite – couldn’t hear the lyrics for the jangly music, & Johnny Rivers was passible, but he’s the only one who didn’t say ‘that’s the end-dah’, he just left it at ‘end’ and that sounded just wrong. haha 🙂

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    1. Oh, Barbara …. l love your in-depth analysis! I never thought I’d say “Have you heard that Gary Lewis & The Playboys” Beatles cover? I really like it!” …. but, given the other choices (not counting the Beatles) it’s the best of the lot! It really is a sordid song and John later regretted recording it …. but, compared to many of the lyrics we hear today, this is baby talk prattle! 😳

      Thanks for a great comment, Barbara!

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  7. Well … I’m going well against the flow here – I love the Nancy Sinatra version! It’s just SO ’60s!! (Mind, I do like a lot of her stuff, for that very reason. It’s so cliched it’s cool.)

    Never heard the Gary Lewis version, but I like that alot too. Instrumentally, it reminds me of The Monkees a bit..Sorry – but The Beatles version comes third for me. 😀 😀 😀

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