Blues Run the Game

Frank wrote "Blues Run the Game" and recorded it in July 1965, with Paul Simon producing, as the first track of the album (3:34) and the A-side of the single released that year (listed at 2:50 on the song's own article), backed with "Can't Get Away from My Love". Tiny Mix Tapes says he wrote it during one of the only times things seemed to be going well in his life, after the settlement paid for his trip to England.

Simon and Garfunkel recorded it (included on Old Friends, 1997), Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, John Renbourn with Eddi Reader, Bert Jansch, Counting Crows, John Mayer, Colin Meloy, Robin Pecknold, Mark Lanegan, Laura Marling, Jack Steadman, Martin Simpson, Alela Diane with Headless Heroes, Nick Harper and Bonnie Dobson also have versions. It is heard in an episode of This Is Us, in The Old Man and the Gun (2018), in Britannia, in Ken Burns's The Vietnam War and in an episode of Poker Face. The BBC Radio 4 programme "Blues Run the Game" by Laura Barton aired on November 20, 2012, and Bob Stanley wrote about Frank in the Guardian on January 9, 2014.