"Mad World" is a 1982 song by British band

Tears for Fears Tears for Fears are an English pop rock band formed in Bath, England, in 1981 by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. Founded after the dissolution of their first band, the mod-influenced Graduate, Tears for Fears were associated with the new ...

. Written by

Roland Orzabal Roland Orzabal (born Roland Jaime Orzabal de la Quintana; 22 August 1961) is a British musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, and author. He is best known as a co-founder of Tears for Fears, of which he is the main songwriter and joint v ...

and sung by bassist

Curt Smith Curt Smith (born 24 June 1961) is a British singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and co-founding member of the pop rock band Tears for Fears along with childhood friend Roland Orzabal. Smith plays bass guitar, has co-written severa ...

, it was the band's third single release and first chart hit, reaching number three on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

in November 1982. Both "Mad World" and its

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

, "Ideas as Opiates", appeared on the band's debut LP '' The Hurting'' (1983). This single was also the band's first international success, reaching the

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "cont ...

in several countries in 1982–83. "Mad World" has since been covered by various artists, including a 2001 version recorded by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the soundtrack of the film ''

Donnie Darko ''Donnie Darko'' is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly and produced by Flower Films. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, ...

''; a 2003 single release of the song reached number one in the UK for three consecutive weeks and won Orzabal his second

Ivor Novello Award The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They have been presented annually in London by the Ivors Academy (formerly the BASCA) since 1956, and over 1,000 statuettes have been ...

. A 2021 rendition of the song was included on

Demi Lovato Demetria Devonne Lovato ( ; born August 20, 1992), known as Demi Lovato, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. After appearing on the children's television series '' Barney & Friends'' (2002–2004), Lovato rose to prominence for p ...

's album '' Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over''. The cover photo was taken at Round Pond in

Kensington Gardens Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyd ...

(London, England).

Background

"Mad World" was originally written on acoustic guitar when Orzabal was 19 after being inspired to write a new wave song in the vein of

Duran Duran Duran Duran () are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer and bassist Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor. With the addition of drummer Roger Taylor the following year the band we ...

's " Girls on Film". After a few false starts with Orzabal on vocals, he suggested Smith sing it and "suddenly it sounded fabulous". "Mad World" was intended to be the B-side for the band's second single " Pale Shelter (You Don't Give Me Love)", but their record company stated that "Mad World" could be a single in its own right. The band then opted to re-record "Mad World" with producers Ross Cullum and

Chris Hughes Chris Hughes (born November 26, 1983) is an American entrepreneur and author who co-founded and served as spokesman for the online social directory and networking site Facebook until 2007. He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of ''The New R ...

, the latter a former drummer with

Adam and the Ants Adam and the Ants were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. The group existed in two incarnations, both fronted by Adam Ant, over the period 1977 to 1982. The first, founded in May 1977 and known simply as The Ants until November of t ...

. Curt Smith's ad lib in the song's final chorus resulted in a

mondegreen A mondegreen () is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes w ...

. Smith clarified the actual lyric in 2010:

Meaning

The song was influenced by the theories of Arthur Janov, author of ''

The Primal Scream ''The Primal Scream. Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis'' (1970; second edition 1999) is a book by the psychologist Arthur Janov, in which the author describes his experiences with patients during the months he developed primal therapy. Althou ...

''. 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.

Reception

Cash Box ''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', was an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an onli ...

'' said that the song "grows on you, expanding from a soft dance tune to a shy Britisher's confessions of his darkest dreams."

B-side

"Ideas as Opiates" is a song that originally served as the B-side to the "Mad World" single, and was later 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 Primal therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov, who argues that neurosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma. Janov argues that repressed pain can be sequentially brought to conscious awareness for resolut ...

. 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-inch single and is mostly instrumental.

Music video

The promotional video for "Mad World" was filmed in late summer 1982, in the grounds of Knebworth House. It was Tears for Fears' first music video, and features Curt Smith staring out of a window while Roland Orzabal dances outside on a lakeside jetty. A brief party scene in the video features friends and family of the band, including Smith's mother as well as his then-wife Lynne. According to Curt Smith, "When we made the video in a country estate on the cheap, we bussed all our friends and family up from Bath and had a fun day. The woman who's having the birthday party in the video is my mum." The music video was directed by Clive Richardson who was notable for his work at that time with

Depeche Mode Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in Basildon, Essex, in 1980. The band currently consists of Dave Gahan (lead vocals and co-songwriting) and Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, co-lead vocals and main songwriting). Depech ...

Track listings

7-inch: Mercury / IDEA3 (

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

) / 812 213–7 (

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

) # "Mad World" – 3:32 # "Ideas as Opiates" – 3:54 7-inch: Mercury / IDEA3 (

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

) / 6059 568 (

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) / TOS 1411 (

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

) # "Mad World" (World Remix) – 3:42 # "Ideas as Opiates" – 3:54 7-inch double pack: Mercury / IDEA33 (United Kingdom) # "Mad World" – 3:32 # "Mad World" (World Remix) – 3:42 # "Suffer the Children" (Remix) – 4:15 # "Ideas as Opiates" – 3:54 12-inch: Mercury / IDEA312 (United Kingdom) / 6400 677 (Europe) # "Mad World" – 3:32 # "Ideas as Opiates" – 3:54 # "Saxophones as Opiates" – 3:54

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Michael Andrews and Gary Jules version

"Mad World" achieved a second round of success 20 years after its release, when it was covered by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the film ''

'' (2001). While the Tears for Fears version featured

synthesisers A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

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

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. ...

imitating a cello, very light touches of electric piano, and modest use of a

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder ...

on the chorus. Their version was originally released on CD in 2002 on the film's

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrac ...

, but an increasing cult-following spawned by the film's DVD release finally prompted Jules and Andrews to issue the song as a proper single. It was released through

Sanctuary Records Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and is as of 2013 a subsidiary of BMG Rights Management solely for reissues. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest m ...

on 15 December 2003, in time for the race for the UK's Christmas number one, beating "

Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End) "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)" is a single released by British hard rock band the Darkness. The single was released on 15 December 2003, to fall in with the UK Christmas number one race, ultimately finishing runner-up. The track w ...

" by the Darkness to take the title the following week. This version was used in 2005 as the soundtrack for the opening section of the Season 6 episode "Room Service" of ''

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'', also referred to as ''CSI'' and ''CSI: Las Vegas'', is an American procedural forensics crime drama television series that ran on CBS from October 6, 2000, to September 27, 2015, spanning 15 seasons. This wa ...

''.

Background

For the soundtrack to the film ''

'' (2001), director Richard Kelly commissioned Michael Andrews, a San Diego musician and television and film composer who had worked as a member of a range of bands, including the Origin with Gary Jules (whose two solo albums he had produced), and the Greyboy Allstars. Kelly said he was confident that Andrews could do the job: "I met with Michael and I just knew right away that he was really, really talented and that he could come up with a really original score. He would allow me to be in there and be really kind of editorial with how I wanted the score to be." Andrews relocated to Los Angeles to work on the film between October and December 2000. As Andrews states, the low budget for the project encouraged him to play a diverse range of instruments for the soundtrack:

The film was pretty low budget so my portion of the money was pretty thin. I couldn't hire anyone, it was just me. I played everything;
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
,
mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. ...
, mini
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
,
xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...
,
ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
,
organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...
. I also brought in two female vocalists Sam Shelton and Tori Haberman. But no guitar because Richard said no guitar or drums; he just wasn't into it. I was down with that—I've played guitar my whole life.

Like many of his role models for soundtrack composing (such as John Barry and

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classi ...

), Andrews wanted to put a song on his otherwise instrumental score. He eventually chose "Mad World", as Tears for Fears were one of his and childhood friend Jules' favourite bands growing up. Andrews enlisted Jules to sing the song, while Andrews himself played the piano; together they recorded the song in an hour and a half. Despite being critically acclaimed, ''Donnie Darko'' was not a commercial success, but it sold very well on DVD and became a

cult film A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage i ...

, and demand grew for Andrews and Jules' cover of "Mad World" to be released as a proper single. This prompted Andrews to give the song an official release. Jules said that he believed the song was easy for people to relate to: "I think it's a really beautiful example of a person struggling with the fact that life is mad. I honestly think it's one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard and the way it's stripped down now just pins people." He went on to say, "Every so often a song with just vocals, piano and cello creeps up on you and says something about who you are, where you're going which stops you in your tracks."

Chart performance

Despite "

" by the Darkness being the bookmakers' favourite to become the 2003 Christmas number one in the UK, "Mad World" upset the odds and took the title on 21 December 2003. It remained at number one on the

for three consecutive weeks. The song's success in the UK did not, however, translate to the United States, where it reached number 30 on the ''Billboard''

Modern Rock Tracks Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks (1988–2009) and Alternative Songs (2009–2020)) is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in ''Billboard'' magazine since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-playe ...

chart in the issue dated 27 March 2004. Jules performed "Mad World" with

Mylène Farmer Mylène Jeanne Gautier (; born 12 September 1961), known professionally as Mylène Farmer (), is a Canadian-born French singer, songwriter, occasional actress, writer, and entrepreneur. Having sold more than 30 million records in France, she is ...

on her '' Timeless 2013 Tour.'' In 2006, the song was included in the commercial to the video game ''

Gears of War ''Gears of War'' is a media franchise centered on a series of video games created by Epic Games, developed and managed by The Coalition, and owned and published by Xbox Game Studios. The franchise is best known for its third-person shooter v ...

'', which helped move it up the charts. A performance on the eighth season of ''

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to ...

'' by

Adam Lambert Adam Mitchel Lambert (born January 29, 1982) is an American singer and songwriter. Since 2009, he has sold over 3 million albums and 5 million singles worldwide. Lambert is known for his dynamic vocal performances that fuse his theatrical tra ...

also briefly increased its sales and interest in the song. The song reached No. 11 on the Rock Digital Songs chart. The song charted again in Australia in 2020 following the success of '' The Masked Singer''.

Music video

The music video was directed by Michel Gondry and was filmed at Hoboken Middle School (formally AJ Demarest School) in

Hoboken, New Jersey Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 ...

. It begins with an aerial shot of the school; the bell rings and children go out onto the pavement. The rest of the video sees the children forming different shapes whilst Jules stands on the roof and watches from above. On two occasions the camera pans towards Jules looking down at the children, whilst a third pan away sees Andrews playing a piano as the song ends. The video has over 160 million views since it was uploaded to

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

on 9 January 2006. Curt Smith paid tribute to the Jules and Andrews version in April 2020 while staying home under general quarantine orders due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. He and his daughter Diva performed an acoustic guitar rendition of "Mad World" using the style of Jules and Andrews, uploading the video to

. Their version went viral, picking up more than a million views in one week, and four million views in the first month.

Track listings

CD1: Sanctuary / SANXD250 (

) # "Mad World" – 3:06 # "No Poetry" – 3:59 # "Mad World" (alternate version) – 3:37 CD2: Sanctuary / SANXD250X (United Kingdom) # "Mad World" (Grayed Out Mix) – 6:45 # "The Artifact & Living" – 2:26 # "Mad World" (video) – 3:20

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

External links

''Boston Globe'' article on the Andrews/Jules cover
{{authority control Songs about depression 1982 singles 1982 songs 2003 debut singles Christmas number-one singles in the United Kingdom Mercury Records singles Music videos directed by Michel Gondry Number-one singles in Scotland Phonogram Records singles Song recordings produced by Ross Cullum Song recordings produced by Chris Hughes (record producer) Songs written by Roland Orzabal Tears for Fears songs UK Independent Singles Chart number-one singles UK Singles Chart number-one singles Internet memes introduced in 2003