In an advertisement during the Super Bowl last Sunday, fans of Kanye West were pleasantly surprised to hear the haunting opening notes of “Runaway,” West’s nine-minute confessional from his legendary album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Interestingly, the track in the ad, which was a trailer for season 2 of HBO’s Westworld, was an orchestral rendition of “Runaway” reimagined by the show’s composer, Ramin Djawadi.
“Westworld’s co-creator Jonathan Nolan suggested ‘Runaway’ as he loves the song and had been playing with the idea of using it for a while,” Djawadi tells P&P over email. "I had a lot of fun working on reimagining the song. It is always tricky to reduce a song with multiple layers in to a single instrument." He adds, "I'm a fan of Kayne's music. It would be fun to cover "Can't Tell Me Nothing."
Now, the full version of this cover is available on streaming services, and the song itself tastefully captures Kanye’s vocal melody and maintains the integrity of the original. Between Yeethoven and now this, I think we’ve had our fair share of Kanye West x classical music crossovers. Now, if we could only get a Kanye West halftime show...
Listen to the "Runaway" cover above and continue for the Westworld ad that ran during the Super Bowl.
