These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy songs...
20. Slade - Mama We're All Crazee Now
Slade almost missed out on this list altogether due to Noddy's crazy spelling.
19. Super Furry Animals - Crazy Naked Girls
I include this purely because I know it'll double the number of hits this post gets. And not from SFA fans...
18. Huey Lewis & The News - Gimme The Keys (And I'll Drive You Crazy)
After releasing one of the biggest albums of the 80s, Huey and the gang came back with one of the cheesiest. It bombed. Still, you've got to love a video as bad as this.
17. Eminem - My Dad's Gone Crazy
Haillie Jade has just realised her dad is nuts. Took her long enough. But just how nuts...?
Cuz when I speak, it's tongue in cheek
I'd yank my fuckin teeth before 'd ever bite my tongue
I'd slice my gums, get struck by fuckin' lightning twice at once
And die and come back as Vanilla Ice's son
That nuts.
16. Aerosmith - Crazy
In which Steven Tyler gets his daughter Liv, and one of her sexy model friends, to dance around in and out of their school uniforms to sell his records. Which must be kind of the LA rockstar equivalent of sending your kid up the chimney. Crazy.
15. Dr Feelgood - Crazy About Girls
I remember a time when I was crazy about girls...
14. Hot Chocolate - Girl Crazy
...and so does Errol Brown.
13. James - Crazy
Tim Booth isn't crazy - he's just laughing at himself.
12. Guns n Roses - You're Crazy
Axl doesn't just think you're crazy, he thinks you're fucking crazy. It amuses me how many people on youtube dedicate this to their ex-girlfriend... and to Charlie Sheen.
11. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
Before he found solo fame singing "fuck you and fuck her too" to everyone who dissed or dumped him in high school, Cee Lo Green was crazy too.
10. Madonna - Crazy For You
This reminds me of being a teenager in love. I can't even remember who the girl was, but I was ridiculously smitten and certain that if I got her on her own and played her this song she'd reveal her mutual desire. Did it ever happen? What do you think...?
"From the motion picture Vision Quest".
You know - Vision Quest!
No, me neither.
9. Queen - Stone Cold Crazy
One from my youth. Freddie dreaming he's Al Capone. Exhibit A in the case against anyone who believes Queen didn't ROCK.
EDIT: Oh, and I just rememembered Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Why the heck did my computer not suggest that? Has it deleted it? Bugger!
8. Prince - Let's Go Crazy
Let's go crazy
Let's get nuts
Let's look for the purple banana
'Til they put us in the truck, let's go!
Dear old Prince. He didn't have very far to go.
7. The Osmonds - Crazy Horses
The Osmonds got so pissed off about the exhaust fumes from their neighbour's car that they abandoned their traditional boy band shtick and went all heavy rawk... with pleasingly mental results.
Apparently Westlife covered this in 2003. Thankfully I can neither confirm nor deny that rumour.
6. Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy
Whatever happened to Roland Gift?
5. Magnetic Fields - Crazy For You (But Not That Crazy)
You know how Meat Loaf would do anything for love but not that...?
Stephin Merrit has similar issues.
I treated you like radium. I treated you like God.
You were my glass menagerie, did you not find that odd?
I dwelt within and went without and broke my virgin flesh.
I performed acts of devotion as if you were Ganesh, but now
I'm crazy for you but not that crazy.
4. Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years
Sometimes a lyricist writes straight from my heart...
I'm not the kind of man
Who tends to socialize
I seem to lean on
Old familiar ways
And I ain't no fool for love songs
That whisper in my ears
Still crazy after all these years
See also Crazy Love Volume II, from Graceland.
3. Patsy Cline - Crazy
Strictly speaking, this is probably the best song on the list. It should by all rights be Number One. But there's two songs in my collection that, while not quite so classic, mean just a little more to me...
2. Kiss - Crazy Crazy Nights
I've been listening to the Kiss Greatest Hits CD recently. It was suprisingly amazing. I know, you won't believe me.
This was their first big UK hit, though in the States I guess it was considered their comeback. We missed out on the ridiculous furore first time round. I was 15 when I first heard this. No further explanation is necessary.
1. Robbie Robertson - Somewhere Down The Crazy River
And then, one year later, I heard this. Until then I thought Robbie Robertson was just J. Jonah Jameson's stressed out city editor. I'd never heard anything by The Band... and I'd never heard anything quite like this. Legend has it that producer Daniel Lanois created this track by secretly recording Robbie talking about growing up in Arkansas. (I'm not sure I believe that.) It's spoken word, gravelly voiced magic that paints wonderfully vivid pictures and sounds more like an excerpt from a movie soundtrack than a chart hit. And yet somehow it ended up getting played on the radio and made it to number 15 in the charts. There's no way anything like that would happen today and our charts are much worse for it. This remains one of the most atmospheric singles I've ever bought - it's right up there with Ghost Town.
So. Those were my craziest songs... what was I crazy to leave out?
No crazy frogs allowed.
