Who the F*ck is George Karak????????

Well, if Jon co-created as well as sang the VERSION of Runaway that RESULTED in the record deal offer, Karak blundered big time: it was both legally and ethically correct of the label to require that Karak split the song's ownership. But why did Karak conclude that he therefore had some kind of leverage over Jon? He should have kept his eyes on the real prize -- the record deal -- instead of trying to pull some kind of last-minute power play.

At least he's getting an income from Runaway -- I thought Bon Jovi stopped playing Runaway and In And Out Of Love because they now have teenage daughters!

Years ago I asked on the Q & A function on bj.com "Who was George Karak?" the answer came from Obie as...."Just a songwriter Jon used to work with, nothing more, nothing less"....Also his version of Runaway with his band "Intruder" was released around 2000. It's different, but a pretty kick ass guitar solo!

Note the acoustic piano opening.

This is probably the the pre-WAPP contest version: the one Karak copyrighted and which Jon re-recorded with Power Station recording studio musicians. Note also that there are no lyrical differences -- and only one musical one -- between it and the current version.

Bumping a 9 year old thread for this. Congratulations.

A JoviTalker raised some questions about Runaway that "this" thread could answer, and being that it's nine years old, a link needed to be updated. That makes you the one who bumped it for nothing -- the congratulations is all yours!

Wow thanks for this! Do you know when was this recorded?

Thanks a lot! Very interesting. Except for the fact that the keyboard riff is played on guitar it's very similar. Even the small guitar licks/riffs throghout the song is pretty much the same as on the BJ version.
Would be very interesting to know when this one was recorded.

Presumably it was before he hooked up with Jon in the early 80's, if only because there aren't any musical or lyrical differences between the Intruder and BJ versions. Which would mean that Jon didn't write or compose it at all, just got half credit from Karak when he got his record deal.

Well, it turns out that Karak is still very much alive and kicking, complete with a web site containing New York and Nashville contact info, albums that Runaway has appeared on, and a couple of Soundcloud MP3s -- including Runaway!

Similar to a discussion on here about Richie's writing contributions, just because Jon's name is always first on the song writers list doesn't mean he contributed the most, or sometimes even anything to the song aside from "being in the room" (amd even that if often debatable, as in 'Runaway'). A lot of songs like A Teardrop To The Sea, and probably a bunch of the other Falcon co-writes and almost certainly many of the Richie co-writes more than likely had little to do with Jon, from a songwriting point of view. And we've always known that Desmond Child was the main writer on a lot of those songs...

Might of missed something. Where did it come out Teardrop to the Sea was mainly a Falcon song?