Songfacts®:

• The dramatic opening track from English Rock musician Noel Gallagher's debut solo album finds him desperately pleading in the chorus: "Hang in there love/ you gotta hold on/ 'cause everybody's on the run." Like "If I Had a Gun," the song was bootlegged during soundchecks on Oasis' South American tour. "I'd more or less finished it when it was posted to YouTube," Gallagher told Spin magazine. "It's nice that people still care enough to sneak down and stick it online."
• Noel told The Sun that the Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds album has a definite narrative feel. He explained: "It starts off with 'Everybody's On the Run' where two people are saying, 'Come on, we've got to get out of here.' Then it goes through all the twists and turns to the middle and says, 'What a life, we are having such a great time.' But then you've been on this journey and you're thinking this is not where I want to be. '(Stranded On) The Wrong Beach' is saying the grass isn't always greener on the other side and maybe what you're running from isn't all that badThat's where 'Stop The Clocks' comes in. I'm saying, 'Let's go back to the beginning.'"
• Gallagher explained to Spin magazine how this song sets the scene for the rest of the album. "It's about a couple - boyfriend and girlfriend, man and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, best friends, doesn't matter - that take each other by the hand and say, 'We've got to get out of here.' Although it's about two people on the run, the narrator of the song - that being me - is saying, 'Everybody is on the run from something. Nobody is settled. Nobody is where they're supposed to be. Everybody is looking for something.'"
• The song should be filed as one of Gallagher's more spectacular works - It features a 100-piece church choir and 24-piece orchestra. The choir is the Crouch End Festival Chorus. They previously performed with Oasis at the Electric Proms, and have also recorded with Ray Davies, The Divine Comedy and Travis. The string orchestra are the all-female ensemble The Wired Strings. Gallagher insisted on female string players because, "they play strings a lot sexier than men." They have also worked with Beyoncé, Coldplay and Adele.
• The song's music video was shot in Los Angeles and sees Gallagher take on the role of an Los Angeles cab driver. It also features a cameo from American actress Mischa Barton, who ends up running through the streets of Downtown LA in her underwear.