“Crazy” is a song written by English singer-songwriter Seal and English songwriter Guy Sigsworth. Produced by Trevor Horn, it was released by ZTT Records on 26 November 1990 as the lead single from Seal’s debut studio album, Seal (1991). The song became his first commercial hit, reaching No. 2 in the United Kingdom, while becoming his first top ten single in the United States. It has since been covered by several artists, including Alanis Morissette, whose version was released as a single from her 2005 compilation album, The Collection.
Background and composition
Seal wrote “Crazy” in 1990 inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. In 2015, Seal said of the song’s conception in 1990: “I felt the cycle had reached its apex. I felt the world changing and I felt profound things happening.
According to the song’s producer Trevor Horn, “Crazy” was made over the course of two months: “‘Crazy’ wasn’t an easy record to make, because we were aiming high.
The song’s signature is a keyboard mantra that continually swells and swirls, driven by bass-heavy beats and wah-wah pedal guitars played by Simply Red guitarist Kenji Suzuki. Its floating, ambient stylings established a sound years before The Politics of Dancing by Paul van Dyk or William Orbit’s work with Madonna and All Saints. Orbit produced a remix of the track for the single release. Seal’s vocals are deeply melodic and soulful, at times with a characteristic rasp, while at others soaring high above the backing track. In an interview with Q, Seal told:
I had no doubt about ‘Crazy’. I always thought it was a potential No. 1—even though it never was! It’s the first song I wrote on the guitar, and the first song where I said everything I wanted to say in a concise way. Before that my songs had been too long. But as soon as I wrote the hook, I knew it was a potential hit.
