Run-Around

Blues Traveler frontman John Popper was caught in the "friend zone" with the band's original bass player, Felicia Lewis, when he wrote this song. The group's guitarist, Chan Kinchla, told the story in a 2012 Songfacts interview: "The song's an unrequited love song about John and our original bass player, Felicia, who he kind of had a crush on. She was actually classically trained as a violinist, and she was just playing bass for fun because she was friends with everyone." Kinchla says that Felicia was a great student and eventually became a doctor - her calling was medicine, not music. When Bobby Sheehan was ready to take over on bass, Felicia stepped aside. Says Kinchla, "It's a very amicable situation. John always had kind of a crush on her, but they were friends, as well. So that song's from that whole affair. They're still very close. It's just an unrequited love song."

This was the first hit for Blues Traveler, and it shot them to stardom after seven years of touring and three previous albums. All that touring primed the band for their success, and they did very well on the many TV appearances they earned as a result of this song. In particular, David Letterman became a huge fan and had the band on several times, often bantering with John Popper during the show.

Pure pop songs were hard to find in 1994, since so much popular music contained elements of grunge or hip-hop. Top 40 radio stations trying to stay in the middle embraced this song along with offerings from other newly discovered but refined acts like Dave Matthews Band, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Sheryl Crow. Once the song gained some traction, it hung around for a while - it stayed on the US Hot 100 for 49 consecutive weeks, which was a record at the time.