The composition features repetitive piano riffs, intricate samples and a production style with several similarities to West's previous album 808s & Heartbreak (2008).

Some of the inspiration of the song was derived from various media controversies, including West's interruption of recording artist Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards during her acceptance speech.

[2] The controversy caused West to exile himself to Oahu, Hawaii and record his fifth studio album mostly in a reclusive nature, shying away from collaborating with artists he wasn't personally close to.

[4] West, greatly impressed with Pusha T's performance while recording "Runaway", subsequently signed him to his label, GOOD Music in September of that year; two months prior to the albums release.

[11] According to Troy L. Smith of Cleveland.com, "Runaway" can be described as a progressive rap production comprising layers of varied musical elements, including pop, dance, R&B, trip hop, and art rock.

[13] During a concluding reprise of the chorus and the opening melody, West ends the song with a three-minute outro of vocoded and overdriven wordless singing accompanied by string sections harmonizing with his vocals.

Allmusic editor Andy Kellman was favorable to the outro, saying that "West blows into a device and comes out sounding something like a muffled, bristly version of Robert Fripp's guitar.

"[13][20] Slant Magazine's Matthew Cole interpreted the purpose of the outro as a "fantasy of escape through pure catharsis, with the vocoder literalizing Kanye's ability to transform his personal shortcomings into art.

A midtempo funky-drummer beat glides underneath the melancholy, reverberating piano notes, while a deep, mushrooming bass tone threatens to swallow everything.

Brusque cello strokes contrast with elegiac violins, while a dirty guitar wends through the string section like a drunk, knocking over music stands and splattering mud on the white-tablecloth beauty.

[22] Another interpretation was proposed by Chicago Sun-Times writer Thomas Conner, who wrote "the last four minutes find him humming and singing, but his voice is Auto-Tuned and distorted beyond perceptibility.

[13] Cole stated that the song was deeply personal in nature, viewing it as an agonizing portrait of a man "trying to exit the black hole of his own implacable ego.

[25] Dombal mused that with the song, he "rousingly highlights his own douchebaggery, turning it into a rallying cry for all humanity" and described the vocal manipulation towards the end as sounding like a "dying cyborg".

[26] Thomas Conner of the Chicago Sun-Times cited the song as the thesis statement to the rest of the album, calling it "epic" and musing that West's "difficulty in communicating makes him a menace in the real world, but it's pretty compelling on record.

[27] IGN's Chad Grischow, felt that the three minute conclusion was over-long, but commented that with the "icy chill of the piano and naked beat sound fantastic" while also calling the production soaring.

[19] Kitty Empire of The Guardian complimented the scope of the track, stating "taking things to the next level is one of hip-hop's great cliches, an achievement that West can comfortably claim.

"[28] David Browne of Time stated that the song, much like "Lost in the World", feature "shimmering soundscapes that pinpoint a common ground between the hardness of hip-hop and the sweetness of indie rock.

"[32] Kyle Anderson of MTV News proposed that the song was the best single of West's career, writing "but there's something about 'Runaway' that makes it feel just a little bit more special, like it could really end up in the pantheon of great hip-hop moments".

Rolling Stone named "Runaway" the best song of 2010, commenting that it was "Kanye's musical response to the Taylor Swift affair, but it's much more than that: a nine-minute meditation on romantic failure and public infamy.

"[34] Kyle Anderson, writing for MTV, named it the 2nd Best Song of 2010, stating that the track began with a "haunting single tap of a piano key, kicking off one of the most epic, jaw-dropping, honest and thrilling pieces of music to hit the popular airwaves all year".

[35] Pitchfork Media named it the second-best song of 2010 stating that "Runaway" puts "Kanye's contradictory impulses on full display like they're some immaculate museum exhibit.

At nine minutes, it is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's longest song, but also its simplest and most emotionally direct [...] 'Runaway' marks the rare moment where Kanye sides with his detractors — if the whole world thinks he's a douchebag, well, this one time he's inclined to agree.

"[37] New York Post also named the song as the best of the year, musing "whether he’s self-deprecating or pulling the wool over our eyes, we can’t help running toward this talented bad boy when he tells us, 'Run away from me, baby'... Maybe it’s not his Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but ours.

[47] Time writer Claire Saddath graded his performance with an 'A+', and wrote that "it's hard to take a song that includes the lyrics 'Let's have a toast for the douche bags' seriously, but with this clean, honest execution, Kanye pulls it off.

"[55] Todd Martens, critic for Los Angeles Times, described that the performance consisted of a "group of wayward ballerinas, seemingly caught in some sort of magnetic push and pull from the artist.

[61] On December 9, 2021, West headlined a benefit concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with fellow rapper Drake to raise clemency for Larry Hoover.

During the solo portion of his set, West performed an emotional rendition of "Runaway", altering the outro's lyrics into a plea for his estranged wife, Kim Kardashian, to "run right back" to him.

[76] Nitsuh Abebe of New York offered an interpretation of the video, commenting: In Runaway, the short film he released this fall, he uses a plinking piano to summon a ballet troupe, then sings about raising a toast to the douchebags and assholes of the world — in other words, he sticks a symbol of classical refinement next to a lyric about being toxic and acting ugly.

[...] He’s attracted to these symbols of classical refinement and aristocracy — ballet, golden goblets, 'Persian rugs with cherub imagery,' Greek mythology, next-level luxury brands — and then he sits among them reminding us that it doesn’t make him any different, or keep him from acting poisonous, or pissing the world off by grabbing people’s microphones.

[77] The music video was praised by Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker, calling it "a carefully modulated art-film made by a man on a mission", noting the usage of dominant colors as well as the imagery in the film.