To an eleven-year-old boy Roy Orbison came across as a curious character. His ever-present sunglasses let me to believe that he was blind like Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles but my folks informed me that this was not the case. More bizarre was his grandfatherly voice. Even standing next to what seemed like a bunch of old farts — three of whom were younger then than I am now with a fourth (Dylan) being the same age as me — Orbison looked and sounded ancient. Even that ponytail didn't help.
"Handle with Care" was a Top 30 hit in November of 1988. In the first week of December it fell out of the Top 40 but re-entered seven days later in the wake of Orbison's unexpected death. But it was the posthumous releases that really did well following the tragedy. "You Got It" was a Top 10 hit around the world in the early part of '89 while the acclaimed album Mystery Girl also sold well. I was too young and deluded by pop conventions of being young and beautiful to realize the truth: this old dude had some bangers in his arsenal. But it was only with the 1992 release of "I Drove All Night" that I was mature enough to accept it — and even then I was at first convinced that the only reason I liked it was because I was a horny teenager who was besotted by Jennifer Connolly in the accompanying video.
So, I love me some Roy Orbison. That said, I don't think "Running Scared" is one of his classics. It's by no means a botch but it scarcely sounds like a single at all. Sure, the public tend to be suckers for big ass love songs and doubtless this played a part in its success but weren't they a little disappointed by its two minutes of gradual build only for it to go absolutely nowhere? Apparently not.
It's possible that some were just so taken by Orbison's incredible operatic country and western vocals that it was worth it for them alone. Yeah, it's plausible though I don't know why it took this relatively ordinary song to pique their interest. The Big O had released dozen singles prior to 1961 though only a pair of them — the flawless near-chart topper "Only the Lonely" and its nearly-as-strong follow-up "Blue Angel" — managed to make him a household name. Nevertheless, Orbison would later confess that his long-awaited burst of chart hits was already drying up by the end of 1960. He felt that "Running Scared" gave his career a much needed second wind from which he never looked back.
With all due respect to his first ever CHUM/Hot 100 number one smash, I kind of feel like it could have been any winsome Orbison ballad that could have done the trick. "Only the Lonely" did well a year earlier and it's easy enough to picture it taking the place of "Running Scared" at the top of the heap had things been different. What if the touching "Crying" had been released first? The guy could belt out a slow song for moody teens and couples into some serious necking and petting alike and this one happened to be the one the bulk of them sulked and/or felt up to the most; I can't prove it but I'm saying circumstance was a much bigger reason for why it did so well.
Your biggest hits aren't always going to be your best. This is something that has already come up in this space on a handful of occasions and no doubt there will be many more examples as we get to the decades ahead. Nevertheless, Roy Orbison seems like an especially unique example. Few regard "Running Scared" as a top tier hit anymore and it is now more of an afterthought (significantly, the compilation The Essential Roy Orbison only includes a version that had been re-recorded in 1986 for the re-constituted greatest hits package In Dreams). He'll be coming up at least two more times, once with a signature hit that virtually everyone knows and loves to death and then with a song I've never heard before. Fingers crossed it's another banger but it could just as easily get me to shrug my shoulders. (Suffice it to say, none of "Handle with Care", "You Got It" nor "I Drove All Night" will be on deck at any point. Worse luck)
Score: 6
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