Living Like A Runaway

"Living Like A Runaway" is a song from Lita Ford's eighth studio album, Living Like A Runaway, released as the lead single from the album. It premiered on Eddie Trunk's radio show on June 1, 2012. On Jessica's Top 40, "Living Like A Runaway" became Lita's 11th top 10 chart hit, as well as her sixth to debut inside the top 10, entering at #10 the week of June 10, 2012. The following week it climbed to #1, becoming her sixth #1 hit and tying her with Oasis for the second-most #1 songs on Jessica's Top 40. On September 9, 2012, "Living Like A Runaway" broke the record for most weeks at #1, while Lita also earned a record-breaking 36th career week at #1. "Living Like A Runaway" ended 2012 as my #1 song of the year.

With anticipation high for Lita Ford's Living Like A Runaway, I warmly welcomed the first two tracks released from the album, "Branded" and "Mother", the former debuting at #1 upon its release. However, neither were released as the album's lead single, which wasn't promoted to radio until two weeks before the album's release. And the lead single was Lita at her strongest in many years.

The title track to the album, "Living Like A Runaway", was confirmed by Eddie Trunk to be the first single from the album and was first played on his show on June 1, 2012. Musically, the song is a midtempo pop rocker that recalls Lita's late 80s-early 90s material. Unlike the first two songs released from the album, "Living Like A Runaway" is not based on her divorce from Jim Gillette, instead inspired by her life as a musician. The song and album title is an obvious reference to Lita Ford's old band The Runaways, where she got her start.

Discussing the track in an interview with RockConfidential.com, Lita said, "This record will be an inspiration to a lot of people in many ways. Like 'Living Like A Runaway' — how many people are running away from things? Running away from the law, their homework — it goes many different directions."

Just days after the song was first promoted to radio, "Living Like A Runaway" debuted at #10 on Jessica's Top 40 the week of June 10, 2012, becoming Lita's record sixth song to debut inside the top 10 (four of which debuted at #1, also a record). The following week, it jumped from #10 to #1, becoming Lita's sixth JT40 chart-topper, tying Oasis for the second most #1s of all time.

But that wasn't the end of Lita's accomplishments with her comeback era. On the week of September 9, 2012, "Living Like A Runaway" spent its 13th week at #1 and broke the record for the song with the most weeks at #1 set by Alanis Morissette's "Eight Easy Steps" in November 2004, with Lita also spending her 36th overall week at #1 on JT40 breaking the record for the artist with the most career weeks at #1, a record held by Madonna since my chart was first established in 2003. The following week Lita extended her reign to 14 weeks and broke the record Adele set just a year earlier for the artist with the most consecutive weeks at #1, with 19 weeks.

Perhaps what was an even bigger accomplishment for the era was that it appealed to personal charts outside of JT40, a feat that past Lita songs, as well as many major JT40 hits from veteran hard rock and heavy metal acts, failed to achieve. Based exclusively on positive word of mouth that resulted from my love of the song, "Living Like A Runaway" reached #60 on the Globalchart in August 2012.

It's no surprise to see Lita live it up on Jessica's Top 40, for her "back to basics" comeback resulted in my favorite song of the 2010s so far.