Hi everyone –
The inclusion of a version of Tears For Fears’ Mad World on American Idol last night has drawn a lot of attention in the last 24 hours.
As grateful as I am for the interest in the song and for the folks who have said such nice things about me, I feel like I need to clear up again, and hopefully for the last time, a few points about the version of the song that my friend Mike Andrews and I did for Mike’s original ‘Donnie Darko’ score in 2001 — mostly because it makes me very uncomfortable to have people give me credit for stuff I didn’t do.
I don’t know why the story gets changed around, but it does, and it’s not fair for the other folks involved. I’m sure that the mistakes are not intentionally vicious or even purposeful most times, but inaccuracies cause problems for everyone, including me — and they are totally unnecessary. I think we’re all able to understand a slightly more nuanced tale now and again, right?
Basically, the story (again) as I know it is this . . .
I am the SINGER of the ‘Donnie Darko’ version of Mad World, and that is all. I didn’t write it — it was written by Roland Orzabal and originally sung by Curt Smith, who are collectively known as Tears For Fears. Mike Andrews and I first heard the song on the brilliant Tears For Fears album “The Hurting”, one of our favorites in highschool and since.
Further, it wasn’t my idea to do the song. It isn’t my recording or my arrangement. It was NOT recorded for my album “Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets”. Our version was originally recorded as an end-piece to Mikes’ score for the movie ‘Donnie Darko’ (though in the theatrical edit it ended up playing in the film itself). I was allowed to put it on ‘Snakeoil’ because at the time we had no idea if the movie was ever really going to get released, and we thought it was cool — another song that Mike and I did together that we thought was cool.
To be perfectly clear: The sound of our Mad World, like the rest of the original music in ‘Darko’, was born in Mike’s brain alone. The arrangement — the simple, plodding, muted piano, the cellos, the tone, the emptiness, the beauty of it. Even the effect on my voice when it says Mad World. All of those decisions were his. The world that my voice lives in on that recording was created solely by Mike.
Some details, again for the sake of clarity:
Mike is one of my oldest and closest friends. We’ve been making music together since we were kids. So while I was mixing tracks from my album “Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets” (which Mike and I also made together) at another friends’ house, Mike was working all day every day on the score for ‘Donnie Darko’. I would come by his house and play him the mixes I was working on, he would play me new pieces from the ‘Darko’ score.
For the end of the project Mike decided that he wanted to do an 80’s cover (since ‘Donnie Darko’ was set in the 80’s) but in the very spooky and identifiable style of his score music from the film — to marry a piece of the 80’s to the modern score.
Listen to Mad World and then listen to the rest of my music — super different. Listen to Mad World and Mike’s own records — not quite as different, but still different. Listen to Mad World and the rest of Mike’s ‘Donnie Darko’ score — EXACTLY THE SAME!!
Point is, Mike chose Mad World for the end of ‘Donnie Darko’ . . . and on what turned out to be one of the most fateful days of my life, he called and asked me to come and sing it. I don’t know why, but he did.
So I’m the singer, and because of that I get a lot of credit — some warranted, some not. In reality, if it weren’t for Mike, that version wouldn’t exist, period. There would not have been a Mad World in ‘Donnie Darko’, on the “Gears of War” ads, or on “American Idol”.
And it’s not just Mike, the song has become popular for a lot of different reasons:
– The folks at Everloving Records (Andy Factor and Wayne Greene specifically) have worked very hard at tremendous expense to get the score album out into the world and to try and protect those of us who are intimately involved with it — and have dealt with an immense, nearly criminal, amount of bullshit for their trouble.
– Richard Kelly’s ‘Donnie Darko’ was released in the UK and very well received, and it became a cult phenomenon here in the US, which drove the song further and further into the public consciousness.
– I myself have been all over the world singing and talking about the song on the radio, TV, and the internet.
But mostly, I think people just reacted to the song, and the way that it’s perfectly framed so that the essential and undeniable truth of the song arrives unencumbered by the music that supports it. It makes people FEEL something. That has something to do with Roland’s words and melody, it has to do with my voice and delivery, and it also has equally if not more to do with the choices that Mike made for how to present whole thing. That fact was tested and proven again last night when Adam Lambert sang the song his own way with Mike’s arrangement (basically), and 30 million people loved it.
OK, winding up: we have tried very hard and been through a lot in the last 8 or 9 years to have people understand the truth of where our version came from because it’s very much who we are as friends and as individuals. It’s important. Important to us personally, and important for anyone who wants to be able to live in a creative community where you can work with people you love, make a living, and not have to worry about inadvertently fucking your friends over to make the story easier to swallow.
We can all understand complicated stories . . . especially when they’re true.
Thanks for reading this far, and thanks for listening.
GJ