Seal Sings “Crazy”
Listen to this track by London-born Ivor Novello-winning singer-songwriter Seal. It’s “Crazy”, a hit song taken from his 1991 self-titled debut record. The album came out after years playing in cover bands and time spent traveling in Asia, removed from his culture and immersed in the unfamiliar. Upon his return to Britain, Seal got a solo deal with musician and producer Trevor Horn’s ZTT records.
This tune was the lead single from the album, released in advance in November of 1990 and scoring a number two spot in Britain by January of 1991. It became Seal’s best performing single in the UK and his first top ten in the U.S. It made impact on charts all over the world in top ten positions as well. With critical comparisons at the time to Terrence Trent D’Arby, Lenny Kravitz, and even Marvin Gaye, Seal had arrived with a single that cleared a path for him for the rest of the decade and beyond.
“Crazy” straddled the line between eras, sounding like an attempt to make sense of recent history on a musical level as well as on a lyrical one. The shimmering synths and beats of late-Eighties club scenes wrap it in an otherworldly sheen and build it up to an epic scale. A supremely funky bass part that pops underneath it and the wah-wah guitar reference the influence of Seventies funk and soundtrack music. At the same time, “Crazy” embodies the energy of a Sixties folk protest song full of desperation, dread, and hopeful idealism carried in very large part by Seal’s impassioned vocals. Trevor Horn’s production holds it all in balance to make it more than the sum of its parts.
On a compositional level, “Crazy” is built on tension that rests on its impactful use of suspended chords – groupings of notes that are unresolved and could transition to either major or minor. These chords build their way upward on top of each other, and the tension they create builds right along with them as if they are a series of held breaths. These musical elements shore up the song’s lyrical themes of uncertainty with images of a few brave people who dare to stand firm as historical events pile up against each other, with those events and times also waiting to become resolved. In this, the song’s musical structure is a reflection of the times out of which it came.
The Eighties was a tumultuous and politically polarized time, with existential fears felt in nations all over the world reaching a fever pitch over their course. This was before Tiananmen Square protests and the crumbling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 provided a symbolic conclusion to the era. Margaret Thatcher resigned as Tory party leader the following year. George H.W. Bush was a one-termer. The years 1990-91 was a comedown period. There was a lot to process. Hope for change was in the air. But as in any era, nothing was certain.
Seal performing in 2011. image: Ppmarat.“Crazy” arrived at just the right time as a reflection of that. The culture was unpacking an era that was over while also being poised for the one to come. All of this cast us all into an in-between of major and minor, reflected vividly in this song. Its lament of a world and sky full of people with only a few who truly want to fly is full of gravity and sadness. But it contains a weathered sense of hopefulness, too. In this, there is another level of tension and release in “Crazy” which the music matches with incredible precision. The build up of sound riding on a wave of suspended chords, and the brief reprieve as the chords resolve tells a powerful story about how civilization responds to the call to change. On this level alone, “Crazy” is an extraordinary artistic achievement.
Further to this, this tune allows enough space to project our own meaning onto it as listeners. Its emotional palette, images, and suggestions of events don’t lock us into anything specific. Instead, it lends images and suggestions to our imaginations and perceptions. This only adds to how powerful a statement it is about trying to make sense of the world even when we don’t have all the pieces to make a complete picture.
There have been interpretations of this song that posits that the man unlocking the door after seventy years in the opening line is Aldous Huxley. The unlocked door in question therefore is one of perception. So presumably then, the key to unlock it is psychotropic drugs, perhaps reinforced by references to “taking the pill” heard elsewhere in the song. But, “Crazy” is much larger in scope than being a commercial for mind-altering pharmaceuticals. This cut coalesces around the wider themes of transformation and becoming, which is also at the heart of what Huxley was interested in when he wrote The Doors of Perception.
The journey toward those goals in any capacity often seems to be pretty crazy to many. This tune is an anthem to passing from one era to another with courage to take the next steps toward something better, even if it means upsetting what we’ve come to think of as familiar or sensible. It was the perfect song for the times out of which it came as cultures grappled with the political implications of the Cold War’s end.
But that theme is also one that’s applicable at any time, and in any era. It’s certainly applicable now, when changing our course based on what we know now and didn’t know before is becoming more and more necessary. And like the song suggested in 1991, this question of survival is more pertinent than ever before. We’ve moved on from where we were when this tune came out. But many of the themes and sentiments it suggests remain applicable, and even necessary for us to continue to examine.
People are hungry for change. The question hanging over us is about which set of changes will we embrace. If we’re going to survive, we really are going to have get a little crazy. In fact, it’s the sanest thing for us to do.
Seal is an active singer, songwriter, and performer today. You can learn more about his newest releases and other news at sealofficial.com
To learn more about this song including Seal’s background and motivations for writing it, check out this article about “Crazy” on American Songwriter.
To hear another version of this tune, check out Seal playing “Crazy” acoustically, demonstrating among other things how melodically and thematically sturdy this tune is in any arrangement.
Enjoy!
#90sMusic #politicalMusic #ProgressiveRB #Seal #TrevorHorn
