Midlife Crisis (song)

"Midlife Crisis"
Single by Faith No More
from the album Angel Dust
Released	May 26, 1992
Format	CD, Cassette, Vinyl
Recorded	Coast Recorders and Brilliant Studios, San Francisco, California January – March 1992
Genre	Experimental rock, alternative metal
Length	4:22
Label	Slash
Writer(s)	Lyrics: Mike Patton Music: Roddy Bottum Mike Bordin Billy Gould Mike Patton
Producer	Matt Wallace
Faith No More singles chronology
"Falling to Pieces" (1990) "Midlife Crisis" (1992) "A Small Victory" (1992)
Music sample Midlife Crisis

"Midlife Crisis" is a song by the American rock band Faith No More. It was released on May 26, 1992 as the first single from their fourth album, Angel Dust. It became their sole number-one hit on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Lyrics

Mike Patton has denied that the song is about having a midlife crisis, as he did not know what one would feel like, but says "it's more about creating false emotion, being emotional, dwelling on your emotions and in a sense inventing them."^[1] and that:

“

the song is based on a lot of observation and a lot of speculation. But in sort of a pointed way it's kind of about Madonna... I think it was a particular time where I was being bombarded with her image on TV and in magazines and her whole shtick kind of speaks to me in that way... like she's going through some sort of problem. It seems she's getting a bit desperate.[1]

”

Production

During production the song was given the working title of "Madonna"^[2] which was later maintained as a setlist name during live performances.^[3] The drum track for the song contains a sample of the first bar of the song "Cecilia," as performed by Simon and Garfunkel, repeated throughout. sample (help·info)^[4] The bridge features a sample of "Rien Ne Va Plus" by Funk Factory.

Music video

The video for this song was directed by Kevin Kerslake, who also directed their shoestring video for the song "Everything's Ruined". The version on the Who Cares a Lot?: Greatest Videos collection features the uncensored version that contains some shots omitted from pre-watershed broadcasts of the video. Most noticeably during the bridge which shows a man being stretched by four horses (alluding to an old French punishment for regicide, known as "quartering") - the censored version features additional shots of choirboys running to a big cross instead.

For the video, the sound mix of this song is slightly different than the album version (on certain promotional releases it is referred to as 'The Scream Mix'). For the DVD re-release of Who Cares a Lot?: Greatest Videos, the album version of the song is used instead, with the accommodating edits made.

Appearances and covers

"Midlife Crisis" has featured on the soundtrack for the videogames Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, on the fictional Alternative station Radio X, and has been covered by industrial metal band Bile, on their 2002 cover album; The Copy Machine, and by American rock band Disturbed trice, once earlier in their career that was originally going to be put on a Faith No More tribute album, but was instead released through the internet, the second time as a B-side to their fourth studio album Indestructible; this re-recorded version was released on Covered, A Revolution in Sound and third time on their B-side collection album The Lost Children, remastered edition from the previous cover.^[5] It is a master track song on Rock Band 3, with the fade-out ending edited for gameplay reasons.

Track list

No.	Title	Lyrics	Length
1.	"Midlife Crisis" (The Scream Mix)	Patton	3:55
2.	""Jizzlobber""	Martin, Patton	6:39
3.	"Crack Hitler"	Patton	4:39
4.	"Midnight Cowboy"	—	4:13

Australian Edition
No.	Title	Lyrics	Length
1.	"Midlife Crisis"	Patton	4:24
2.	""Jizzlobber""	Martin, Patton	6:39
3.	"As the Worm Turns" (re-recording)	Mosely	2:38

Charts

Chart	Peak
Australian Singles Chart[6]	31
Austrian Singles Chart[7]	9
Irish Singles Chart[8]	13
UK Singles Chart[9]	10
US Mainstream Rock Tracks[10]	32
US Modern Rock Tracks[10]	1

See also

• Number one modern rock hits of 1992

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Q30 on the FAQ on the Faith No More website
2. ^ The Making of Angel Dust. MTV. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
3. ^ "Faith No More FAQ, Q32". FNM.com. http://www.fnm.com/faq/#32. Retrieved 2008-07-25. 
4. ^ Q40 on the FAQ on the Faith No More website
5. ^ "BLABBERMOUTH.NET — MASTODON, DISTURBED Featured On 'Covered, A Revolution In Sound'". Roadrunnerrecords.com. http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.Net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=112377. Retrieved 2009-08-29. 
6. ^ Faith No More singles search. australian-charts.com.
7. ^ Austrian charts page for Angel Dust and singles. austriancharts.at.
8. ^ Irish charts search engine irishcharts.ie. Retrieved 28 May 2008.
9. ^ Archive containing all UK top 40 charts. everyhit.co.uk.
10. ^ ^{a b} Album charts for Faith No More. Billboard.com

External links

• Allmusic Cassette Single page
• Allmusic CD Single page