Go Insane (song)

"Go Insane" is the title track of Lindsey Buckingham's second solo album. Released as a single in 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.

"Go Insane"
Single by Lindsey Buckingham
from the album Go Insane
B-side"Play in the Rain"
ReleasedJuly 1984
GenreRock, New wave
Length3:08
LabelElektra/Warner Music Group
Songwriter(s)Lindsey Buckingham
Producer(s)Lindsey Buckingham, Gordon Fordyce
Lindsey Buckingham singles chronology
"Holiday Road"
(1983)		 "Go Insane"
(1984)		 "Slow Dancing"
(1984)
Audio sample
"Go Insane"
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Billboard called it "aggressive, electronic dance-rock."[1]

Lyrics

When asked about the lyrics of "Go Insane", he explained:

"Insanity can be 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". "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."[2]

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 [3]

Personnel

Chart history
Chart (1984) Peak
position
Canada RPM Top Singles[4] 57
U.S. Billboard Hot 100[5] 23
U.S. Cash Box Top 100[6] 24

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.

References
  1. "Singles Reviews". Billboard. July 21, 1984. p. 57. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
  2. "Transcript of a 1984 interview with Lindsey Buckingham". fleetwoodmac.net. 1984. Retrieved July 14, 2016.
  3. April 16, 2008 Rockline Radio interview
  4. "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Collectionscanada.gc.ca. 1984-10-27. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  5. Whitburn, Joel (2013). Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles, 14th Edition: 1955-2012. Record Research. p. 122.
  6. Cash Box Top 100 Singles, September 29, 1984
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