I MUST RUN
Phil and the Frantics is best known for a song called “I Must Run”, which was a local hit single in their native Arizona; the song is said to have been adapted rather openly from the flip side of the Zombies’ fourth single, “She’s Coming Home” b/w “I Must Move” (the follow-up to one of their biggest hits “Tell Her No”). I was unfamiliar with the Zombies song but have played it recently, and I don’t really see the resemblance; if the song titles weren’t so similar, it might have slipped through the cracks altogether. In any case, “I Must Run” is a superior recording to “I Must Move”, and I am not the only one who thinks so; my view is shared by that of Ugly Things magazine.
However, every source that I have examined mentions the adaptation, so I guess it is there. For instance, it is mentioned in the tongue-in-cheek liner notes on the Pebbles, Volume 2 LP where I first encountered “I Must Run”. The author of the liner notes is listed as “A. Seltzer”, and I think they are supposed to be satirically in the style of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, though I am not positive of that. (Philip Seymour Hoffman played Bangs in the 2000 film Almost Famous). About this song, “Seltzer” writes: “And if you just moved to Dacron from some dumb place like Phoenix, Arizona, take heart cuz they’ve included YOUR favorite band, Phil & the Frantics with their famed plagiarism of the Zombies’ ‘I Must Run’. I’ll bet they did when the real songwriters came after ’em for taking credit for this song! Real sleaze, but a shoo-in for punk posterity.”
For what it’s worth, the resemblance between “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison and “He’s So Fine” by the Chiffons is much clearer to these ears than is the case with “I Must Run” by Phil and the Frantics and “I Must Move” by the Zombies.
Waylon Jennings wound up producing the band’s fourth and most successful single, “I Must Run” b/w “Pain”; he also played 12-string guitar on the recording. (A later release of the 45 had a different flip side, “What’s Happening”). In the wake of its success, Phil and the Frantics toured for a time with Peter and Gordon and others.
The first album featuring music by Phil and the Frantics came out in 1980 on the Bomp! Records label Voxx Records as Rough Diamonds, Volume 3 in their Rough Diamonds Series that consisted of entire albums by 1960’s garage rock bands that have more than one or two singles to their credit. The first side is in an earlier style and is what I imagine music at a “sock hop” might sound like (I was a little too young to have ever actually gone to one), while Side 2 collects music from the same period as “I Must Run”. Another of the songs on this album, “Till You Get What You Want” has been included on several garage rock compilation albums; I have a copy on Acid Dreams Epitaph. Nothing else is quite as good as “I Must Run”, but several of the other songs on the album are just as enjoyable.
(August 2012)
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