What was the final song Roy Orbison performed on stage?
It’s not for nothing that the official website of Roy Orbison calls him ‘The Soul of Rock ‘n’ Roll’. There was always something deeper, more personal and more affecting about The Big O than his early rock contemporaries. Where his peers would howl and jive across the stage, quiffs whistling in the wind as the first generation of teenagers howled with approval, Orbison was still. Cutting an almost sinister figure in dark glasses and his signature quivering tenor, he displayed a depth of emotional despair that other singers wouldn’t dare to display, even in their “sad” songs.
It was a depth that came from a tough old life. One with many stops, starts, peaks and troughs before his untimely passing at the far too-young age of 52. From the very beginning, his career had more twists and turns than most. Case in point, the Orbison we all know and love, of ‘Crying’, ‘Running Scared’ and ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ came after most of his peers had already fallen off the pop charts and into hilariously awful movies in Elvis’ case, in the early 1960s.
Orbison’s first spell in the limelight, fronting rockabilly also-rans The Teen Kings, ended in 1956 after his band felt like his ego was going to his head. In fairness, Orbison did spend his first major paycheck from the group on a purple Cadillac and a diamond ring, so they may have been right on the money there. After the group came to an end, Orbison tried and failed to mount the solo career that many (Elvis included) had predicted he’d succeed with. Instead, he retreated behind the scenes, writing the smash hit ‘Claudette’ for the Everly Brothers.
Eventually, Monument Records got hold of the demos Orbison was cutting and decided that rather than pitch those songs to other artists, they would give him the chance to go solo. One ‘Only The Lonely’ later, Orbison went from a has-been relic of the rockabilly era to one of the biggest pop stars in the world. The song made an international star of this self-admitted, quiet, and reserved man. It was his follow-up, though, that showed the world that Orbison was here to stay.
Written with typical empathy about a woman afraid to leave an abusive partner, ‘Running Scared’ is one of the most powerful, atmospheric songs of the decade. It is a moving piece that showed the operatic potential of rock with its orchestral, with an almost bolero-esque scope and that final high A Orbison hits that sends shivers to this day.
Fun fact: the first time he hit that note in the studio sessions for the song, every musician stopped playing in astonishment and ruined the take.
While he had bigger hits as time went on, ‘Running Scared’ is arguably Orbison’s signature song. It sums up his work in all its drama and heartbreak and was, fittingly, the last song he ever performed live at the Front Row Theatre in Cleveland in 1988, two days before his death. While it is a tragedy that we’d never get to see how far he’d go with the Travelling Wilbury’s and if the 1990s could have been as good for him as they were for, say, Johnny Cash, he went out cresting a wave of popularity and affection not seen since his 1960s heyday.
It was entirely deserved for a man who saw enough hardship and triumphs for a dozen lifetimes and made incredible music to reflect it.
