Songs about madness / insanity / going crazy

And not, like, "Goin' Crazy" by David Lee Roth. Looking for examples of songs with madness as a central (preferably serious) theme. I'm thinking along the lines of about half the discography of Handsome Family...any help on this?

I'm thinking along the lines of about half the discography of Handsome Family Pink Floyd...any help on this?

amirite

"They're Coming to Take Me Away" - Kim Fowley (?)

"All the Madmen" - David Bowie

Bowie - "Bewley Brothers" ?

All of this: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/01/crazy-tunes-for.html

Does "Insane in the Membrane" count?

The "I'm Not Mad, It's You Normals Who Are Mad!" Subgenre:

"My Pink Half of the Drainpipe" - The Bonzo Dog Band
"Madman Across the Water" - Elton John
"Asylum" - Supertramp

my mind playin tricks on me duh

Joy Division-She's Lost Control

The Move "Cherry Blossom Clinic"

I Don't Remember Loving You
by John Conlee
Lyrics by: Bobby Braddock, Harlan Howard
# Debut Chart
10 Oct '82 Country

I don't remember loving you
And I don't recall the things
You say you put me through
You tell me that you've had
A guilty conscience for so long
You say that you walked out on me
You say you did me wrong
Well, I just don't see how that could be true
'Cause I don't remember loving you

I don't remember loving you
You might talk to my doctor
He drops by each day at two
I get a funny feeling
When I look into your eyes
There's something in your smile
That gives my stomach butterflies
You must look like someone I once knew
But I don't remember loving you

I don't remember loving you
I heard you mention children
Did you say there's one or two?
You say I quit my job
And then I drank myself insane
You say that I ran down the highway
Screaming out your name
Well, that's not the sort of thing that I would do
No, I don't remember loving you

I don't remember loving you
I absolutely positively
Know that can't be true
But everyone I know here in this place
Is really strange
If you'll hand me my crayons
I'll be glad to take your name
In case I run across that guy you knew
But I don't remeber loving you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbaCokEdNz0

"They're Coming to Take Me Away" was Napoleon XIV, fwiw (though Fowley apparently had something to do with it.)

"The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan," Marianne Faithful (written by Shel Silverstein)

fairport - crazy man michael

"Pay No Attention to Alice," Tom T. Hall

"House On The Hill," Kevin Coyne (and other songs apparently -- he worked in a mental institution)

take your pick of ramones songs (which i think were always more "serious" than they were given credit for, because joey and dee dee were seriously screwy dudes)

"gimme gimme shock treatment"
"i wanna be sedated"
"you sound like you're sick"
"psychotherapy"

probably lots more i can't think of off the top of my head

Mott The Hoople - "When My Mind's Gone"
Black Sabbath - "Paranoid"

off the top of my head

"Teenage Lobotomy," for instance!

"Basket Case," Green Day

you got my mind messed up.

i don't want you on my mind.

shores southern trio "goin' crazy"

losing touch with my mind.

pixies: "where is my mind," "is she weird"

james brown - i'll go crazy

always liked this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCBm_IESaVA

(oop didn't see that video was a twofer. second song isn't on topic. catchy tho.)

professor longhair - her mind is gone

Voices In My Head - The Windbreakers

c'mon guys, ozzy "crazy train"

aerosmith "crazy"

Modern Lovers - "She Cracked"

Teardrop Explodes "Went Crazy"

A song I've always liked about getting better, (maybe) is "Sparkle" by Candy Butchers.

a show tunes up-beat encouragement from the point of view of the family and friends. Google it, and lala will give you a listen.

for the uglier truths, Syd Barret's first album, and some songs by the Dead Boys eg, "Not Anymore", "Sonic Reducer", "Ain't it Fun" do the trick.

or "There's Nothing " by The Freeze.

Abba "The Visitors"

I hear the doorbell ring and suddenly the panic takes me
The sound so ominously tearing through the silence
I cannot move, I'm standing
Numb and frozen
Among the things I love so dearly
The books, the paintings and the furniture
Help me

The signal's sounding once again and someone tries the door-knob
None of my friends would be so stupidly impatient
And they don't dare to come here
Anymore now
But how I loved our secret meetings
We talked and talked in quiet voices
Smiling

Now I hear them moving
Muffled noises coming through the door
I feel I'm
Crackin' up
Voices growing louder, irritation building
And I'm close to fainting
Crackin' up
They must know by now I'm in here trembling
In a terror evergrowing
Crackin' up
My whole world is falling, going crazy
There is no escaping now, I'm
Crackin' up

These walls have witnessed all the anguish of humiliation
And seen the hope of freedom glow in shining faces
And now they've come to take me
Come to break me
And yet it isn't unexpected
I have been waiting for these visitors
Help me

Now I hear them moving
Muffled noises coming through the door
I feel I'm
Crackin' up
Voices growing louder, irritation building
And I'm close to fainting
Crackin' up
They must know by now I'm in here trembling
In a terror evergrowing
Crackin' up
My whole world is falling, going crazy
There is no escaping now, I'm
Crackin' up

Now I hear them moving
Muffled noises coming through the door
I feel I'm
Crackin' up
Voices growing louder, irritation building
And I'm close to fainting
Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
They must know by now I'm in here trembling
In a terror evergrowing
Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
My whole world is falling, going crazy
There is no escaping now, I'm
Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
Now I hear them moving
Muffled noises coming through the door
I feel I'm
Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
Voices growing louder, irritation building
And I'm close to fainting
Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
They must know by now I'm in here trembling
In a terror evergrowing
Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
My whole world is falling, going crazy
There is no escaping now, I'm
Crackin' up

The lyrics to Rudimentary Peni's "The Flame of Insanity" are short and to the point:

what is this that burns,
through every cell,
and every fibre of being?
divine decay,
pure and infernal,
the flame of insanity

METALLICA - "WELCOME HOME (SANITARIUM)"

\m/ O_O \m/

I'm thinking along the lines of about half the discography of Handsome Family Pink Floyd Kevin Coyne:

"Asylum"
"Lunatic"
"The Lunatic Laughs"
"Mad Boy"
"Mad Boy No. 2"
"The House on the Hill" ('I'm going to the house on the hill/ The place where they give you pills')
All of the "Babble" album (Ian Brady counts as insane, right?)

You'll probably question your own sanity while watching...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4GZZqFIZcU

Also:
"Am I Going Insane (Radio)" by Black Sabbath
"Crazy" by Versus
"The Message" by Grandmaster Flash
"L'Affaire Dumoutier (The Dumoutier Affair)" by The Box

"Jugband Blues" - Pink Floyd

"Kill Your Sons" - Lou Reed

My absolute favorite, please PLEASE check it out if you've never heard it--

Art Bears- "In Two Minds"

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-394814-1265851120.jpeg

The Who, Quadrophenia

Sonic Youth "Schizophrenia"

Stones, "19th Nervous Breakdown"

Count 5 Psychotic Reaction

Paul Simon "Still Crazy After All These Years" (seriously!)

The Missing Links "You're Driving Me Insane"

Black Sabbath "Am I Going Insane"

(^^^also inexplicably known as "radio")

Dolly Parton "If I Lose My Mind"

I thot it was bcuz his head is like a radio?

"flagpole sitta" - harvey danger

Helen Reddy - definitely "Angie Baby," probably "Delta Dawn," maybe "Leave Me Alone (Rudy Red Dress)"
Tom T. Hall - "She Gave Her Heart To Jethro"

Groundhogs "split"

"Madness" by Madness.

it's hard to answer this because at least like half of all doom & black metal songs ever written

in other news

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt_yo76AbQ4

entire jandek catalog

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

I Felt Like Smashing My Face in a Clear Glass Window - Yoko Ono

"insane asylum" willie dixon & koko taylor
"madness" thrilla jenna *this song is fucking fierce*

there are also some daniel johnson songs where he explicitly sings about his mental health....

'The Sun Always Shines On TV' - a-ha

My absolute favorite, please PLEASE check it out if you've never heard it--

Art Bears- "In Two Minds"

― T. Geithner look-alikes permeate carparks (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, March 24, 2010 9:55 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

this song is inteeeense

Yep, it is brilliant.

so amazing.

A Loon -- Kristin Hersh

"piggy in the mirror," by the CURE. I'm not sure, but it seems like it could be. The song also builds up the end, like someone spiraling.

"Shapes in the drink like christ
Cracks in the pale blue wall
I'm walking slowly and quickly but
Always away
Twisting twisting to the floor

Flowers in your mouth and the same dry
Song the routine from laughter land
16 white legs and a row of teeth
I watch you in secrecy

Your dying for the hope is gone
From here we go nowhere again
I'm trapped in my face and I'm changing
Too much
I can't climb out the way I fell in

Jump with me
For that old forgotten dance
The midnight sun will burn you up
Your life is cold
Your life is hot
Your life's too much for words

These occasions are such a relief
Another point another view to send
We start to talk
And it's all so safe
I feed you in my dreams

Footsteps on a wire
High above my head
The stain reveals my real intention
I'm the waiting beast
I'm the twisted nerve
As I dance dance
Back to the body in my bed

Look at the piggy
Piggy in the mirror"

yeah, that is a good example of a dark, vivid portrait of psychosis that I've heard in a thousand songs, yet I'm having trouble naming many

On the whole, The Top is good source for this thread:

Get away from me
Get your fingers out of my face
This room's so hot
This room's so hot

I break the walls

Get away from me
Leave me alone
Like the pig on the stairs
Hanging
In a groovy purple shirt

Gasping for air
I'm gasping for air
I'm gasping for love
I'm gasping for air

Slit the cats like cheese
Then eat the sweet sticky things
Suck harder suck harder
Suck your insides insides out

Blood thick swimming round your feet
As you're choking
Choking
Choking on the fleshy words

Give me it give me it give me it
Deaden my glassy mind
Give me it give me it give me it
Make me blind
One step back and one step down
And slip the needles in my side

My head is cold
My hands are cold
My heart is cold
My heart is black
And stops every fucking night
Every night
I wait until it stops

Sing birds sing birds sing birds sing
Get away

Mom just give me a Pepsi, please
All I want is a Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me
All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me.
Just a Pepsi.

I read those Cure lyrics and realized why critics with no ears or indefensible prejudice think the Cure are for miserable losers. I guess they just read the lyric sheet or something.

well, also in that time period The Cure was really wallowing in misery, rage and paranoia

Joni Mitchell: Trouble Child, breaking like the waves in Malibu

Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues -- Bob Dylan (version from Bootleg Series; Vol 1)

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Seether - Veruca Salt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPsQcB52V18

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Jumping at Shadows - Fleetwood Mac (Duster Bennett cover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB6zg05CxYg

........also, Man of the World (just as PG was about to check out)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POWXUCvAPFA&feature=related

....might even sneak The Green Manalishi in, too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTvKaLW5bu8

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The Kinks - Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues (great song, but none too serious)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgG-Ilvd8GE

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Banks of the Ohio - Bill Monroe & Doc Watson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C3r9PnoNTw

----and another interpretation of same...

Down by the River - Neil Young (but since you all know it, here's Roy Buchanan's cover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLhdS-8-YS8

or this.....

Shockabilly (Eugene Chadbourne) - Life's a Gas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9FRKjTLQnE

...or this! Mind bending.
Eugene Chadbourne-God made country music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDBhL8Omm7c

alright - this is the last one...

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - O'Malley's Bar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTSpvCV34Ok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5_tZ5CD088

(I mean, this is kind of a running theme wrt song poems in general, but this one is fairly explicit.)

I'm Goin' Crazy - Smashing Pumpkins

I had never heard that John Conlee song xhuxk posted eight years ago, simultaneously funny and frightening. Harlan Howard was such a great writer.

The Verlaines, "War In My Head".

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet.
Alice Cooper - Ballad of Dwight Fry