And then, coming into that album’s follow up, he delved once again into the “many players” aspect of the writing and playing scenario, something that arguably gave the album a different feel than perhaps a direct follow up to the hard to heavy oriented sound of “Victims of the Future” deserved. Moore’s good friend and frequent collaborator Phil Lynott was back. With the disbandment of Thin Lizzy two years earlier, Lynott had formed another band called Grand Slam in 1984, but which had also broken up due to being unable to break into the current music scene, and being seen as a poor man’s Thin Lizzy. Moore had invited him back to participate on this album, which he does in several capacities. Also on board was Glenn Hughes, formerly of Deep Purple and Trapeze, who had just found himself fired from Black Sabbath for his substance abuse, something he shared with Lynott. Hughes was also a bass playing lead vocalist like Lynott, so the participation of both on this album is a little unusual and rather unique. Three different keyboardists are used, Bob Daisley appears again on bass guitar on one track, and four drummers play pieces along the way. From the outside it seems like a very disjointed way of progressing on an album. If it was to be just a session album then it could be understandable. But by this stage of his career, surely Moore would have been searching for stability in his lineup, both on stage and in the studio. It was something that had the ability to create problems, and eventually the proof could be found in the pudding of the album that it brought together, called “Run for Cover”.
The album consists of ten tracks, with Moore himself credited as sole writer of seven of them. Two have Neil Carter as co-writer, while the other is composed by Phil Lynott and his former band mates from Grand Slam, Laurence Archer and Mark Stanway. That song, “Military Man”, was written by these three for that band, which then fell apart before any album deal came through. Lynott brought it with him when he came into this album, and so it appears here, along with Lynott on lead vocal for the song. For as long as this album has been out, and given I have known this album for almost all of that time, this song has been praised as an important anti-war song, with Lynott’s embracing vocals an important part of riding the emotion through the song. It’s just that, this doesn’t SOUND like a Gary Moore song. He didn’t write it, he doesn’t sing it, he plays guitar on it, and that’s all. The style of the track doesn’t suit what he is best known for in his career as a solo artist. It sounds like a Phil Lynott track, and that just doesn’t line up here at all.
Lynott contributes to one other track on the album, both on bass and as co-lead vocals, and as it turns out it is another anti-war song, but this time written by Moore and with Moore carrying the majority of the lead vocals. And it has become one of his best known and most famous songs, released as an almost stand alone single almost four months before the release of this album. The song is “Out in the Fields”, and features Moore and Lynott on duelling vocals through the song, switching lines and backing each other through the chorus. Unlike “Military Man”, which is a slow build to the energetic and powerful conclusion, this song is immediately punchy with Moore’s guitar riff and Lynott’s rumbling bass line, the tempo is faster and the energy and vibe of the track is upbeat despite the contents of the lyrics. It’s remarkable that these two friends for over 20 years came from either side of the border of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the things they had grown up with and must have seen during their lives growing up gave them a perspective together that makes this an incredibly powerful song. This is the signature song of the album.
Glenn Hughes contributes bass guitar on most of the remainder of the album, apart from one song by Bob Daisley. Hughes also sings lead vocals on four of those tracks. He doesn’t go by the “Voice of Rock” for nothing, as his vocals on those great Deep Purple albums in particular showcase. However, he doesn’t utilise that kind of range on these songs here, and yet he sounds terrific. Still, gives Moore’s ever improving vocals with each album, did he NEED Hughes on this album? Sure, its great that he wanted him involved, but it is still possible to wonder if his contributions could not have been performed by Moore. Certainly, when you hear the songs sung by Hughes here performed live with Moore on lead vocal, these is barely a discernible difference. Anyway, move on Bill, you are wasting valuable time. Let’s look at those four songs. “Reach for the Sky” has a true blues guitar bent about it, something that is perhaps exacerbated by Hughes’s vocals, as he has the ability to bring a real blues tone to anything he performs. But it is scarily reminiscent of the style of song that Moore eventually became entwined with during the 1990’s. The small portions of keyboard and synth do drag it back to the 1980’s, but as a rock blues tune it does act as a look into the future, along with Moore’s guitar solo which really only tops it off. Ah, if only we’d known then what we know now. “Out of My System” returns to a more typical hard rock tone with that 80’s keyboard again entwining its way into the song. There is an obvious desire to send this in a slightly more commercial direction. It was not released as a single but the way the song is written and performed you can hear it dripping of it in places. “Nothing to Lose” settles into its mid-tempo and chugs along for the entirement of the song, not climbing out of its groove, and only feeling lively when both vocalists combine into the bridge and chorus of the song. And the lyrics are barely inspiring, “Keep on rocking and rolling, keep on singing the blues”. And Hughes’s final lead vocal comes from the Moore and Carter penned “All Messed Up”, which could pretty much have been written about Hughes at this point of his career. Heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol, Glenn Hughes was an artist who appeared to be spiralling, and the lyrics here almost tell his story in real time. This is another song that sound much better in the live environment with a bit more grunt in the music and with Gary singing the vocals.
Moore sings the other four songs on the album, which as a result sound like the four most Gary Moore songs on the album. The title track opening song “Run for Cover” is a beauty, with Gary's squealing guitar emphasising where his vocals demand it does, the tempo and energy is at its best and the whole song is a great way to open the album. “Empty Rooms” is a power ballad, plain and simple. And yes it seems that almost every band in existence has to dabble with them. Neil Carter is particularly infatuated with them, and as a co-writer here he and Gary pull out all the stops to create a hitmaker. It was released as the second single before the album was released, where it failed to light any fires. “Once in a Lifetime” mirrors “Out of My System” in that it is an inoffensive 80’s styled rock song with more keys and synth as a basis of the song than you would prefer in a Gary Moore song when he could be contributing more guitar to the mix. Still, then we come to “Listen to Your Heartbeat” which tends to ruin almost everything that has come before it on the album. This is a soft rock almost pop tune, dominated by the synth and keys of the era with almost no appearance of Gary’s guitaring at all, and when it does appear it emulates the style that the track encapsulates. “Empty Rooms” is a legitimate power ballad song, and whether you like them or not Gary performs it well and it showcases a number of great elements of his and his band’s music. But this does not. It is obscenely dreadful. How it could be considered that this song was the way to finish an album is impossible to understand.
When it comes to “Run for Cover”, things don’t make a lot of sense until you consider the following. Because I often have a problem with this album due to the mix and match of musicians throughout. The mood changes that occur from song to song not only come from the change of musicians but the change of lead vocalist. This is something that obviously works in other bands, where different people in the band sing different songs. But here, it is almost like whole new lineups, and with the unique perspective of two different bass players and lead vocalists, their styles are so different in both bass playing and singing that it does sound like either two different albums or at times two different bands. This also was recorded in five different studios, and utilised five different producers, including Moore himself. I mean, it is difficult to make a coherent album with the number of personnel involved, even if one guy is the main songwriter and the ringleader of the circus.
“Run for Cover” was the last of the Gary Moore albums I got a copy of during that decade. Having discovered him late one Friday or Saturday night while watching Rage on ABCTV – it was the live version of “Wishing Well” that dragged me in – and having others of my friend group who were of a similar mind, I managed to get copies of all of his albums to that point in time. Except this one. Then came “Wild Frontier” and “After the War”, both of which I loved and love. And as far as I remember, I even got “Still Got the Blues” before I eventually got my copy of “Run for Cover”. So I had been exposed to a LOT of Gary Moore that, for me at least, existed at the top end of the spectrum.
So when I did listen to this album, I knew “Out in the Fields” and “Empty Rooms” and the title track. But as you may have already suspected while listening to this episode, this album I found very difficult to get into. It wasn’t like his other albums. It sounded disjointed. The songs didn’t flow together. The change in lead vocals on every single track was distracting. The style of each song differed from the other. And, in the main – I just didn’t really like many of the songs. I TRIED to like them, because pretty much everything else I had of his I loved. But this album just didn’t do it for me. And although I have listed here already several reasons why I “Run for Cover” just didn’t and hasn’t worked for me, I think that in the long run, this album is so different from what makes Gary Moore’s music so entertaining. It misses the key ingredients, and that means this batch of songs tastes like sewerage.
And, let me tell you, it hasn’t been for lack of trying again over the past week or so. 13 times I’ve listened to this album from start to finish, hoping something this time around would inspire me to find something that I had not in the previous 40 years. It failed to materialise. I still had the same impressions that I think I always have from this album. It’s okay, I haven’t minded having it on. But it would be very low on the choice meter if I was looking to listen to some Gary Moore to get me through the day.
