| "Mad World" | ||||||||
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| Single by Tears for Fears | ||||||||
| from the album The Hurting | ||||||||
| B-side | "Ideas As Opiates" "Saxophones As Opiates" (12") |
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| Released | 20 September 1982 | |||||||
| Format | 7", 12" | |||||||
| Recorded | 1982 | |||||||
| Genre | Synthpop New Wave |
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| Length | 3:32 | |||||||
| Label | Phonogram Records Mercury |
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| Writer(s) | Roland Orzabal | |||||||
| Producer | Chris Hughes Ross Cullum |
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| Tears for Fears singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Mad World" is a song by the British band Tears for Fears. Written by Roland Orzabal and sung by bassist Curt Smith, it was the band's third single release and first chart hit, reaching #3 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1982. Both Mad World and its B-side, Ideas As Opiates, would turn up on the band's debut LP The Hurting the following year. The song would eventually become Tears for Fears' first international hit, reaching the Top 40 in several countries between 1982 and 1983.
Two decades later, the song made a popular resurgence when it was covered in a much slower, minimalist style by composers Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the soundtrack to the movie Donnie Darko in 2001. This version reached #1 in the UK in December 2003, and also became an international hit.
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Mad World began life as the intended B-side for Tears for Fears' second single "Pale Shelter (You Don't Give Me Love)". The band instead decided it may be something people would like to hear on the radio and held back its release, waiting to issue the song as a single in its own right after re-recording it with Chris Hughes, a former drummer with Adam and the Ants.[1]
That came when I lived above a pizza restaurant in Bath and I could look out onto the centre of the city. Not that Bath is very mad – I should have called it "Bourgeois World"![2]—Roland Orzabal
Mad World was the first single off the finished album. The intention was to gain attention from it and we'd hopefully build up a little following. We had no idea that it would become a hit. Nor did the record company.[2]—Curt Smith
[2] The song was influenced by the theories of Arthur Janov, author of The Primal Scream. The lyric "the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had" suggests that dreams of intense experiences such as death will be the best at releasing tension,[3].
Lyrically the song is pretty loose. It throws together a lot of different images to paint a picture without saying anything specific about the world.[2]—Roland Orzabal
It's very much a voyeur's song. It's looking out at a mad world from the eyes of a teenager.[2]—Curt Smith
The 7" version of Mad World is the same mix of the song found on The Hurting. The song had only one remix on its initial release, the World Remix that was featured on a 7" double-single. This mix is very similar to the album version, with the most notable differences being the additional echo added to the intro and middle sections and the subtraction of a subtle keyboard part from the bridge. A later remix by noted British music producer Afterlife was featured on the 2005 reissue of the Tears for Fears greatest hits collection Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92).
Ideas As Opiates is a song that originally served as the B-side to the Mad World single. It would later be re-recorded for inclusion on The Hurting. The song takes its name from a chapter title in Arthur Janov's book Prisoners of Pain and features lyrics related to the concept of primal therapy. The song is musically sparse, featuring just a piano, drum machine, and saxophone. An alternative version of this song titled Saxophones As Opiates was included as a B-side on the 12" single and is mostly instrumental.
That's the chapter from Janov, and it's really a reference to people's mindsets, the way that the ego can suppress so much nasty information about oneself – the gentle way that the mind can fool oneself into thinking everything is great.[2]—Roland Orzabal
It really was all about that kind of thing – the psychological answer to religion being the opiate of the masses, whereas we thought ideas were, more than anything else.[2]—Curt Smith
The promotional clip for Mad World, filmed in late summer 1982, was Tears for Fears' first music video. It features a gloomy looking Curt Smith staring out a window, while Roland Orzabal performs a bizarre dance outside on a lakeside jetty. A brief party scene in the video featured friends and family of the band, including Smith's then-wife Lynn.
The clip was directed by Clive Richardson who was notable for his work at that time with Depeche Mode.
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1982 | UK Singles Chart | #3 |
| 1983 | Australian Singles Chart | #5 |
| 1983 | German Singles Chart | #21 |
| 1982 | Irish Singles Chart | #6 |
| 1983 | New Zealand Singles Chart[4] | #25 |
| 1983 | South African Singles Chart | #2 |
| 1983 | Swiss Singles Chart | #10 |
| "Mad World" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules | |
| from the album Donnie Darko (Original Soundtrack) and Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets | |
| B-side | No Poetry |
| Released | 2001 15 December 2003 |
| Format | CD |
| Recorded | 2000 |
| Genre | Piano rock Soft rock |
| Length | 3:06 |
| Label | Sanctuary |
Mad World would achieve a second round of success beginning almost twenty years later, after it was covered by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the film Donnie Darko (2001). While the Tears for Fears version featured synthesizers and heavy percussion, the Andrews/Jules version was stripped down; instead of a full musical backing, it used only a set of piano chords, a cello, and modest use of a vocoder on the chorus. Their version was originally released on CD in 2002 on the film's soundtrack, but an increasing cult following spawned by the movie's DVD release finally prompted Jules and Andrews to issue the song as a proper single. The release was a success in late 2003, becoming the Number One single over the Christmas holiday in the UK, a feat Tears for Fears themselves never accomplished. The music video, directed by Michel Gondry, has since been very popular on YouTube, with its most popular posting garnering over 41 million views as of 6th December 2011 (see this link.). It is included on the DVD compilation Michel Gondry 2: More Videos (Before and After DVD 1). The song was later included in the commercial to the videogame Gears of War.[5]
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| Chart (2003/2004/2007/2009/2010) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| UK Singles Chart | 1 |
| USA Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks | 30 |
| Australian Singles Chart | 28 |
| Austrian Singles Chart | 13 |
| Belgium Flanders Singles Chart | 23 |
| Canadian Digital Singles Chart | 1 |
| Danish Singles Chart | 6 |
| Dutch Singles Chart | 4 |
| French Digital Singles Chart[6] | 11 |
| German Singles Chart | 3 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 2 |
| Portuguese Singles Chart[7] | 1 |
| Swedish Singles Chart | 10 |
| Swiss Singles Chart | 53 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 37 |
| End of year chart (2004) | Position |
|---|---|
| German Singles Chart [8] | 14 |
| Chart (2000–2009) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| UK Top 100 Songs of the Decade | 53[9] |
| Chart (2009) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Canadian Hot 100 | 10 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 19 |
| U.S. Billboard Pop 100 | 30 |
In addition to the Andrews/Jules version, Mad World has been recorded over the years by the following artists:
| Preceded by Changes by Ozzy Osbourne & Kelly Osbourne |
UK Number One single (Andrews/Jules version) December 21, 2003 – January 11, 2004 |
Succeeded by All This Time by Michelle McManus |
| Preceded by Sound of the Underground by Girls Aloud |
Christmas Number 1 2003 |
Succeeded by Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid 20 |
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