Go Insane (song)
| "Go Insane" | |||||||
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| Single by Lindsey Buckingham | |||||||
| from the album Go Insane | |||||||
| Released | July 3, 1984 | ||||||
| Genre | Rock, New wave | ||||||
| Length | 3:08 | ||||||
| Label | Reprise/ Warner Music Group | ||||||
| Writer(s) | Lindsey Buckingham | ||||||
| Producer(s) | Lindsey Buckingham, Gordon Fordyce | ||||||
| Lindsey Buckingham singles chronology | |||||||
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"Go Insane" is the title track of Lindsey Buckingham's second solo album. Released as a single, 3 July 1984, it became Buckingham's second top 40 hit (after "Trouble", three years earlier). "Go Insane" is also Buckingham's most recent U.S. solo hit (peaking at #23 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart); on the other hand, it did not chart in the United Kingdom.
Lyrics
When asked about the lyrics of "Go Insane", he explained; "Insanity can said to be very relative to the context you find yourself in. An example might be a very acceptable and typical behavior for a group of people in a little rock and roll microcosm, might be grounds for someone being committed if they worked in a bank". [1]
"Looking at it that way we all tend to go insane a little bit, I think that's ok. I think that's one of the things the album is saying – it is ok to go insane, it can be quite cathartic actually, to watch yourself go out to the edge and sort of reel yourself back in – now hopefully you do reel yourself back in." [1]
"Another point the album makes is if you happen to be with someone else who takes that sort of behavior too far, and you're not willing to give up whatever that relationship might be – then you will tend to go a little bit insane with them. [1]
"And if they are doing that you will experience a lot of the things they are simply by virtue of being a part of that. The important thing is not to take it too far…"
In later years, Buckingham has stated that the song, Go Insane, was actually written about his 7 year old (at that time) post-break up relationship with former lover, Stevie Nicks. “We were disintegrating as couples, by virtue of that, we were suffering as people. So in order to get work done, I had to go through this elaborate exercise in denial – leaving whole areas of baggage on the other side of the room, compartmentalize feelings.. no time to get closure, to work things out.. working in a very highly charged and ambivalent environment. So the go insane thing- would just be whenever I let my guard down and got back to all the things I hadn’t dealt with, it was almost like going insane- like I always do. Took a long, long time, working in an artificial environment on a personal level. So many things not worked through for a long, long time." – Lindsey Buckingham [2]
In the years from 1992–2008 Buckingham recited a poem he wrote as an intro to Go Insane-
"The world was calling you away and your leaving was just a way of staying with what you had come to say,
This pain was a poem, slowly written, torn from the book and cast into a corner in the attic, where no one could look,
This rage for all to see, caught fire and burned all around me till there was nothing left to burn,
Now I stand alone in these attic bones and re-read that poem, all yellowed with age,
Tears heal such as healing is, so I cast that page into the ashes and there is no blame, only shades of regret,
and those too will fade… as the world calls me away."
“Stevie, at some point her persona onstage was latched onto and she was in a sense called away by a larger world and separated on her own from me.”- Lindsey Buckingham [3]
Personnel
- Lindsey Buckingham – vocals, guitar, percussion, Fairlight CMI, LinnDrum
- Bryant Simpson – Bass
Other versions
At concerts, notably on The Dance, he did an acoustic fingerstyle version of Go Insane, which featured just him and a nylon-string guitar.
During the 2008 Gift of Screws tour, as well as Fleetwood Mac's 2009 Unleashed tour, he played the original version of the song. He returned to performing the solo acoustic version on his 2011 Seeds We Sow tour.
Popular culture
The song was featured in the Miami Vice first season (1984) episode "The Great McCarthy".