The James Cagney Film That Gave 'Before They Make Me Run' Its Name

The title and hook of “Before They Make Me Run” come straight from the 1939 prison film Each Dawn I Die – a James Cagney melodrama where a newspaper reporter gets framed and sent to jail. In one scene Cagney’s character spits out the line “before they make me run,” which Keith Richards latched onto as a perfect motto for his own legal nightmares at the time.

Richards wrote the song in 1971–72 while facing serious heroin charges in France and extradition threats from Canada over a 1970 bust. He was living like a fugitive in the South of France, dodging authorities while recording Exile on Main St. in the basement of a rented villa. The line “gonna find my way to heaven / ‘cause I’m down on my knees” wasn’t religious – it was a junkie’s bargaining with the law. The whole track is a snarling, exhausted shrug from a man who knew the cells were closing in but refused to let the bastards see him sweat.