I thought, ‘Thank God for the 19-year-old Roland Orzabal. Unlike some other stories of popular covers, Roland Orzabal loves it, citing the cover’s leap to #1 as the proudest moment of his career: “I was in my 40s and had forgotten how I felt when I wrote all those Tears for Fears songs. Quite fitting that a song about madness become popular at Christmas. I was down with that – I’ve played guitar my whole life.”ĭespite Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) by The Darkness set to become the 2003 Christmas number one in the UK, Mad World upturned the odds and took the title on 21 December, 2003, reamining at #1 for three consecutive weeks. But no guitar because Richard said no guitar or drums he just wasn’t into it. I also brought in two female vocalists Sam Shelton and Tori Haberman. I played everything: piano, mellotron, mini marimba, xylophone, ukulele, organ. Andrews was a member in a range of bands including acid jazz outfit The Greyboy Allstars and the Origin with Gary Jules – whose two solo albums he produced.Īs Andrews states: “The film was pretty low budget so my portion of the money was pretty thin.” It wasn’t until almost 20 years later that Mad World achieved the illuminating success it deserved when Michael Andrews and Gary Jules covered it for the 2001 cult film Donnie Darko. The sombre piano ballad closes out the films final three minutes with an incredibly powerful scene depicting angst, alienation and anguish.ĭirector Richard Kelly employed San Diego musician and film composer Michael Andrews to score the film. The band then opted to re-record Mad World in 1983 with producers Ross Cullum and Chris Hughes, a former drummer with Adam and the Ants.Ĭurt Smith’s ad lib in the song’s final chorus resulted in one of the most famous mondegreen’s of all time.Ĭurt Smith later concluded, “It’s a dark song but it brings back happy memories”. Orzabal said in 2013, “The song was intended as a B-side but Polygram (record label) said it was too good, so it became our third single.” However, after a few false starts with Orzabal on vocals, he suggested Smith sing it and “suddenly it sounded fabulous”.
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