View source for Sanity Slippage Song

{{trope}}
{{quote|"''See what's going on inside my mind.''"|'''[[Disturbed]]''', "Perfect Insanity"}}

Some songs are about [[Silly Love Songs|being in love]]. Some songs are about being insane. They may be incoherent, psychedelic messes or intricate folk songs, but they're about going insane. [[Through the Eyes of Madness|Common themes are what drove the singer crazy and what it feels like in the depths of madness.]]

The music may rise and fall erratically or use other tricks to indicate the singer's fractured mental state, but just as often [[Lyrical Dissonance|the tune sounds perfectly normal.]]

Note that if the singer is mentally ill but the song is about something else, it doesn't count.

When these songs aren't part of a musical, listeners may ask [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?]]?

A [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Sanity Slippage]].

Compare [[BSOD Song]], [[Disney Acid Sequence]].

{{examples}}
==  [[Anime]] ==
* "Komm, Susser Tod" from ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' manages to perfectly show the final nails being hammered into Shinji's breakdown. And Asuka's. And Misato's. Any song where the lyrics include "...so with sadness in my heart, it seems the best thing I can do is end it all and leave forever. What's done is done, it feels so bad, what once was happy now is sad. I'll never love again, my world is ending." counts merely from the lyrics, and that's before [[Lyrical Dissonance]], [[Soundtrack Dissonance]] and [[Mood Dissonance]].
* A lot of the character songs from ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' deal with this, as to be expected [[Through the Eyes of Madness|given the nature of the series]], but Satoshi Hojo's song ''YellowsicKING'' in particular stands out in this regard.
* The ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' ending theme, "La Divina Tragedia" is something like this, maybe mixed with an [[Obsession Song]] as well.
* "Duvet" from ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'' is this, especially the last verse.

==  [[Film]] ==
* "Let The Monster Rise", "Legal Assassin", "Night Surgeon", and "Thankless Job" from ''[[Repo! The Genetic Opera]]''. (So almost everything Nathan Wallace or  {{spoiler|Repo Man}} sings.)
* "Hellfire" in [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney's]] ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]''.
** And "Tu vas me detruire" in the French musical of the same book (''[[Notre Dame de Paris]]'').
* ''[[Muppet Treasure Island]]'' has a big set piece number called "Cabin Fever" when the ship is becalmed and the crew go a bit bonkers.

==  [[Music]] ==
* Fireaxe's four hour [[Rock Opera]] ''[[Food for the Gods]]'' has several: "Hatred Revenge and Death", "Tapestry of Pain" and "River of Madness" come to mind.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8-sMJZTYf0 "Let The Bodies Hit The Floor"] - as the name suggests. Either this or a [[Murder Ballad]] depending on how you interpret the lyrics.
* "The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown)" by [[Fleetwood Mac]], written by Peter Green about his [[Real Life]] [[Sanity Slippage]]. He left the band not long afterwards.
* Pick a [[Foetus]] song. '''[[Mad Artist|Any Foetus song]]'''.
* [[The Mountain Goats]]' "Wild Sage."
** 'Lovecraft in Brooklyn' is a good example as well.
* "Psycho Killer" from [[Talking Heads (band)|Talking Heads]]
** Arguably "Cities" as well. The music is very frantic, a lot of the lyrics don't make much sense, and at one point the singer actually says "But it all works out -- you know, I'm a little freaked out!"
** "Memories Can't Wait" as well. Creepy music with weird droning and electronic wailing sounds in the background, and the lyrics are like this:
{{quote|''There's a party in my mind and I hope it never stops / There's a party up there all the time / They'll party 'til they drop / Other people can go home / Other people they can split / I'm stuck here all the time / I can never quit...''}}
** Y'know, we could probably just classify ''Fear of Music'' as a Sanity Slippage Album. The other songs are about things like how air can hurt you, distrust of animals, [[Singing Simlish|complete nonsense]], and [[Watch It Stoned|drugs]].
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4 They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!]" by Napoleon XIV. Apparently, his mind broke when his wife left him. We get her side of the story in another song.
** Bonus points as the B-side of the single is "[[Sdrawkcab Name|aaaaah-aah yawa em ekat ot gnimoc eryeht]]"
*** That was about his ''wife''? The way it was written, it could just as easily have been his dog at the reveal ("Well you just wait, they'll find you yet, and when they do they'll put you in the ASPCA you mangy mutt!").
*** All but one of Napoleon XIV's songs qualify for this trope. Of course, [[Napoleon Complex|it's quite fitting]], [[Meaningful Name|given the name]].
* A number of ''of Montreal'' songs.
* "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" by Morrissey
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8mAaJuefOw "I'm Going Slightly Mad"] by [[Queen]].
** Also "Stone Cold Crazy".
* "Flagpole Sitta" by [[Harvey Danger]]
* "Unwell" by Matchbox Twenty. It denies being one of these ("I'm not crazy, I'm just a little [[Title Drop|unwell]]"), but it's increasingly obvious that the narrator is lying to himself. Unusually, the overall intention seems to be to humanize mental illness and make the listener feel that the narrator is just a normal person who happens to be going through a horrible thing.
** "Disease" is also a confused admirer's/[[Obsession Song]] with some very depressive lyrics..
{{quote|"Keep your distance from me, don't pay no attention to me, I gotta disease"
"I can't live without you, tell me what I'm supposed to do about it"  }}
* "Art of Life," "Week End," and "Drain" by [[X Japan]]. "Art of Life" is an aversion here, since it's a song that starts out as a Sanity Slippage Song, but is actually the story of recovery from a mental and physical breakdown....
** "Doubt," "Hurry Go Round," "Genkai Haretsu," "Breeding" (oh god yes "Breeding"), "Lemoned I Scream," "Drink or Die," and "Sold Some Attitude" by [[Hideto Matsumoto|hide]] are ALL Sanity Slippage Song s.
* "Brain Damage" by [[Pink Floyd]].
** ''[[The Wall]]'' is a [[Sanity Slippage]] [[Concept Album]].
** "One of My Turns".
** "Jugband Blues" by Floyd's original front man Syd Barrett.
* ''Angry Chair'' by [[Alice in Chains]].
* ''The Garden'' by [[Guns N' Roses]].
* "Am I Going Insane" by [[Black Sabbath]]. And while we're on the subject, how can we possibly forget "Paranoid"?
** Heck, most of [[Ozzy Osbourne]]'s stuff in general might qualify. "Crazy Train" is the best example.
* "All So Nice in the Nuthouse" by Chad Morgan
* "Inmate's Lullaby" - Gentle Giant
* "Absolutely Bill's Mood" - [[They Might Be Giants (band)|They Might Be Giants]]
* "Mr. Psycho" and "Drop Dead" - [[Space]]
* "Just Another Day" - [[Oingo Boingo]] (somebody probably knows better than me, but every time I listen to the song it seems to be about a paranoid schizophrenic getting ready to step out the door in the morning)
** Actually, that's about post-traumatic stress disorder. Or so I heard.
** "Insanity". If the lyrics aren't any indication, go watch the music video.
* In hip-hop, [[Eminem]]'s "Stan" and "Kim".
* Most of the back catalogue of [[The 13th Floor Elevators|Roky Erikson]], often [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlenTPJ6uEw fairly explicitly], but also expressed through mildly or entirely raving lyrics about aliens, demons, zombies, mutants, and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7aLXehSXAo his time spent working in the Kremlin with a two-headed dog].
* Also used to great effect in Peter Maxwell Davies' ''Eight Songs for a Mad King,'' a contemporary musical setting of some of King George the Third's ravings.
* "A Man Could go Quite Mad" and "Both Sides of the Coin" from ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood''
* Rockwell's "(I always feel like) Somebody's Watching Me". See the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY video].
* [[Disturbed]]'s "Down with the Sickness" tells of child abuse as a metaphor for society punishing the "freaks," but the main point is that the narrator has just snapped...
** "Voices".
** "Perfect Insanity"
* [[David Bowie]]'s "All the Madmen" is about somebody who's afraid to leave the asylum and go back to drab normality.
** According to Bowie the world outside the asylum is the one that's insane.
** Another example is "Breaking Glass," in which the protagonist tells a girl "you're such a wonderful person/but you've got problems"...while psychotically trashing her entire bedroom.
* [[Tom Lehrer]]'s "I Hold Your Hand In Mine": starts out sounding romantic, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjPhFSlhOuQ quickly goes quite wrong]. And more so with [[It Got Worse|each succeeding verse....]]
* "Girl Anachronism" by the Dresden Dolls. ''Please excuse her for the day, it's just the way the medication makes her...''
** To continue on the [[Amanda Palmer]] track, "Runs In The Family."
{{quote|"Me, well I'm well, well I mean I'm in hell, well I still have my health, at least that's what they tell me, if wellness is this what in hell's name is sickness?"}}
* [[World Wrestling Entertainment|Randy Orton]]'s current entrance theme, ''Voices'' by Rev Theory, fits this structure.
* [[Alice Cooper]]'s "From the Inside" is a whole album of insanity songs. ''We're all crazy...'' Also "Ballad of Dwight Fry" from Love it to Death. Heck, let's just say 80% of Cooper's output...
* "The Doctor's Wife" by ''The [[Clockwork Quartet]].'' A [[Steampunk]] song about a doctor, trying and failing to cure his wife's deadly illness, over the course of several months. The [[Twist Ending|ending]] is [[Nightmare Fuel|amazing]].
* "Basket Case" by [[Green Day]].
* "I Think I Lost My Headache", by [[Queens of the Stone Age]], is about (possibly drug-induced) paranoia and derails into sing-song trumpet noodling at the end.
{{quote|It's all my head, I know, or so they tell me so...}}
* "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" by [[Metallica]], about the trials and tribulations of a [[Bedlam House|crazyhouse]] inmate.
** "Harvester of Sorrow" is about a man snapping out and possibly killing his family.
** Also, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|The Frayed Ends of Sanity]]
* Throwing Muses' ''Mania''. ''Who left me alone?! What do you mean, you're alone...''
** Or "Vicky's Box", from the Muses' first LP:
{{quote|He won't ride in cars anymore/It reminds him of blowjobs/That he's a queer
And his hair stuck to the roof/Like a pigeon on a tire
...Home is where the heart lies/The heart lies/The hard lies/Welcome home
'''''WelCOME HOME!'''''
...I only love pieces of things that I hate
...You may be dreaming/You may be bleeding/You may be in this box
'''[[Ending Weakly|A kitchen is a place where you prePARE...and clean up.]]''' }}
* Roughly half the songs on [[Eels]]' 1998 masterpiece ''Electro-Shock Blues'', such as "My Descent Into Madness", the title track, and "The Medication Is Wearing Off". The rest of the songs are mostly about death and grief. E's [[Creator Breakdown|sanity really was slipping]], but yours would too if you'd just gone through your schizophrenic sister committing suicide, your mother dying of cancer and your father dying of a heart attack in the space of two years.
* [[Anberlin]]'s "Reclusion"
** "Hello Alone" doesn't paint a great picture of mental health, either.
* From First to Last's "Note to Self"
* [[Motley Crue]] has several, notably "Just another Psycho" and the unreleased track "Mood Ring".
* "Rose's Turn" from ''Gypsy'' is Rose's climactic nervous breakdown on stage.
** "Everything's Coming Up Roses" is another one for Rose. She's obviously not a very emotionally healthy person.
* [[Emilie Autumn]]'s "Opheliac".
** "God Help Me" with that [[Madness Mantra]] too.
** Pretty much everything from the Opheliac CD. Which makes sense, given [[Creator Breakdown|certain circumstances]].
** Unlaced is a sanity slippage instrumental album (Clearly about her time in a psych ward.)
* "Becoming Insane" by Infected Mushroom.
* Half the songs on the Otep album ''House of Secrets'', where Otep adds to the distressing lyrics by alternating between [[Metal Scream]] and [[Nightmare Fuel|the voice of a terrified little girl]].
* [[Nox Arcana]]'s ''Blackthorn Asylum'' is essentially a 21-track trope codifier. As the album's focus is on an insane asylum, loss of sanity and outright insanity are the big focus here. Bonus points for Nox Arcana being almost purely instrumental (there's a touch of narration), and ''still'' pulling it off.
** Also, the thirteenth track is titled ''Sanity Slipping''. No joke.
* Arguably, "Echoplex" by [[Nine Inch Nails]].
** The album ''The Downward Spiral''.
* Sugar by [[System of a Down]], especially at the end.
* "Binge And Purge" by Clutch
* "I Am Slowly Going Crazy," a children's song of uncertain origin.
* Several of Happy Rhodes' songs; it's a theme throughout her very diverse musical omnibus.
* "The Painter" by [[Chris De Burgh]], which is sung from the perspective of an unhinged and insanely jealous man murdering his wife for what appears to be an imaginary fling with the titular painter, and for [[Bonus Points]] is also sung in a manner similar to [[Psycho Strings]].
* "Climbing Up the Walls" by [[Radiohead]]. "Do not cry out or hit the alarm, we are friends til we die."
** That track '''sounds''' scary. "No Surprises" however is so pretty and inoffensive, it could be played in supermarkets. Well...so long as [[Lyrical Dissonance|no one pays attention]] to what Thom's singing:
{{quote|A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal
...A handshake of carbon monoxide }}
*** Not to mention that over the crescendo, the chorus is imperceptibly singing "get me out of here" over and over again.
** "Paranoid Android" too, at least in part.
*** Climbing up the Walls is possibly a Most Triumphant Example, even without understanding the lyrics.
** "Everything in its Right Place" and "How to Disappear Completely" are this, bordering on [[BSOD Song]]. The lyrics of both consist almost entirely of [[Madness Mantra]].
* "Madhouse" by [[Anthrax]].
* Many songs of [[wikipedia:Agatha Christie (band)|''Agatha Christie'']], a Russian gothic rock group.
* In ''[[Gilbert and Sullivan|Ruddigore]]'', Despard and Margaret sing a song ("I once was a very abandoned person") all about how crazy and evil they ''used'' to be, before they got better. But as soon as the song's over, Margaret goes right back to being mad. So it's sort of a Sanity Immediately-Pre-Slippage Song.
* Garbage's "Bleed Like Me". The song alone might qualify, but the music video is about a nurse tending to the mentally ill and swiftly slipping into insanity as she does so.
** "Medication".
** "I Think I'm Paranoid" is not really an example, but could be mistaken for one, given the title and refrain. For the most part, it's a love song, although perhaps a love song from the perspective of someone who's mentally ill given lines like "prop me up with with another pill".
* [[Avenged Sevenfold]]'s "Almost Easy"
* A large amount of [[Tool]] songs can be interpreted this way. "Prison Sex" is perhaps the most overt (and by a large margin the [[squick]]iest) example.
** "Rosetta Stoned" is another notable example, if you're able to actually distinguish what the lyrics are in the first place.
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5z6xvhOxDg Dieter Meyers Inst.]" and "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zq5SxNWhNQ På ditt skift]" by [[Kaizers Orchestra]]. Both involve mental institutions—the first is the character losing his mind in one, the second is about the character killing the director of the institution.
** "[http://www.youtube.com/user/Venix946#p/u/4/ZzoSxdrhBWM Bak et halleluja]" is another Sanity Slippage Song.
* "Headfirst for Halos" by [[My Chemical Romance]] is a [[Lyrical Dissonance|perky]] one.
* Several songs by [[The Used]] qualify-- "Lunacy Fringe", "Take It Away", "The Bird and the Worm", "Come Undone", "Paralyzed", etc, etc...
* Another "whole album" case: ''[[Quadrophenia]]'', by [[The Who]]. Features such songs as "Is It In My Head?" and "Doctor Jimmy."
** Not an obvious choice but a good one. The first track with vocals, "The Real Me", sets the tone: "I'm crazy Ma, help me/'I know how it feels, son/'Cause it runs in the family.'" "Helpless Dancer" extends the implication of insanity to include not only the narrator, but the entire world.
** [[The Who]] did this long before ''Quadrophenia'' with the John-Entwistle-penned "Whiskey Man." It's all about a guy who has an imaginary friend and ends up locked in a mental hospital for it.
* [[Rihanna]]'s "Disturbia" probably qualifies.
* "Where's Gerrold?", which is the final song from Orgy's [[Concept Album]] ''Vapor Transmission.'' "Cover my eyes/ I'm feeling sick/ I'm getting paranoid."
* Juliet by [[Sonata Arctica]]. The mood and sound of the song changes every thirty-ish seconds as well as there being all sorts of strange noises and utter mindfuckery going on in the background. It's subtle but it's possible to hear stuff like high pitched screeches, lalala's, weird twinkly noises and possibly a train whistle. It's not exactly a song about going insane, since it's part of a series of four songs and the character went insane in the first and pretty much went more insane in the other three. This is the last song, and fittingly the most insane. The other three songs are Caleb), The End of This Chapter and Don't Say A Word.
* Quite a bit of [[Korn]]'s early production was about this, with the breaking point usually identifiable by the point where Jonathan Davis switches to a sing-song voice, and switches back to his normal when it's time to go [[Ax Crazy]]. One of the interlude tracks is even named [[Lampshade Hanging|"Am I Going Crazy"]].
** The most epic example of this is "Daddy," off their self-titled album, where Jonathan Davis get through the song, starts getting ''really'' emotional, and then ''breaks down and sobs'' for ten minutes while the rest of the band self-consciously improvises music around him, ending only when someone walks ut of the studio and slams the door.
* "Flowers on the Wall", by the Statler Brothers.
* "Lighten Up McGraw" by [[Crack The Sky]] seems to be this trope, but it's a little hard to tell whether some of the weirder lyrics are meant to represent insanity or if they're just regular old [[Word Salad Lyrics]]. But considering that it has lines like "Well, I eat what I am and I'm not overdressed / I just can't understand why I'm sometimes depressed" and "I haven't giggled in thirty-five months", it probably counts anyways.
* "Leica" by [[Havalina Rail Co.|Havalina]] could be interpreted as this in light of the final lines:
{{quote|And nothing ever seems strange
when you're finally insane.
I could sure use a little help. }}
* "Insane in the Brain" by Cypress Hill is definitely this trope; the only question is whether it's being [[Played for Laughs]] or played straight. Its refrain is "Insane in the membrane / Insane in the brain!"
* "Isolated" by Chiasm
{{quote|The monsters make me hide
Perhaps i'll eat myself alive
Internally there's nothing left for me to be }}
** For that matter, pretty much anything by Chiasm.
* "Undone (The Sweater Song)" by Weezer.
* Oddly enough, [[Elvis Presley|Elvis]] had one in the [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|rather]] [[Disney Acid Sequence|trippy]] "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZBG5AY8AUQ Edge of Reality]" from ''Live a Little, Love a Little''.
{{quote|I can hear strange voices echo
Laughing with mockery
The border line of doom I'm facing
The edge of reality  }}
* [[Pet Shop Boys]]' "I Want To Wake Up". The verses cover the narrator simply having bad dreams about his [[All Love Is Unrequited|unrequited love]], then progress to him suddenly crying whenever "Tainted Love" comes on the radio, declaring single-minded obsession for the love interest, and finally the ominous line "Play with fire, play with guns/It's easy to impress someone".<ref>(This from a time period when the attempted murder of Ronald Reagan by a crazed Jodie Foster fan was still quite fresh.)</ref> At the end, a breakdown is implied as he desperately shouts, [[Madness Mantra|"I want to wake up, wake up, wake up with you!"]] All this to some creepy [[Lyrical Dissonance]].
* "I'm So Sick" by [[Flyleaf]]. This is the chorus:
{{quote|I'm so sick, in-fected-with
Where I live, let me live without this
Empty bliss, selfishness
I'm so sick }}
* "Mad World" by [[Tears for Fears]]. Opening to the chorus:
{{quote|I find it kind of funny and I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had }}
** Only the [[Tears for Fears]] version though. The [[Covered Up|Gary Jules]] version is more of a Spiral Into Depression song.
* [[Sarcasm Mode|Surprisingly enough]], [[Slipknot]] has a few. "Eyeless" comes to mind: the first word sang (er, [[Metal Scream|screamed]]) in the song is "INSANE!"
* "See You All In Hell", by [[Jonathan Coulton]] begins with a list of things needed to film a scene for a movie, and ends with "And now my left arm is not working. I fear nothing anymore. See you all in hell." The weird part is that this is apparently made from a text message a friend of Coulton's actually recieved.
* Frou Frou's "Psychobabble". Mixed stalker, stalkee, a hostage situation that may or may not exist only in the mind of one, and by the end, you can't tell who's who, or even if there were two to begin with.
* Tourniquet, Haunted, The Other Side, Lose Control, Even In Death- [[Evanescence]]
* [[Alice Cooper]]'s "Steven" seems to be about someone whose episodes are triggered by a baby's crying.
{{quote|You've only lived a minute
of your life
I must be dreaming
please stop screaming
Is someone calling me
I hear my name!
STEVEN! (X3) }}
* The song "Mathilde" by [[Jacques Brel]] shows the singer slowly losing his grip until he's willing to accept back a woman he knows will make him miserable.
* "[[Supertramp|Don't arrange to have me sent to no asylum]]. [[Blatant Lies|I'm just as sane as anyone]]. [[Status Quo Is God|It's just a game I play for fun...]]"
* [[Midnight Syndicate]]'s "Gates Of Delirium" tells the story of an asylum. Wanna guess how many of the songs fit this trope?
* Waffle King by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] tells the story of a man that makes an usually good waffle recipe, then becomes convinced that he has become a celebrity, before going [[A God Am I]].
* "Seasons In The Abyss" by [[Slayer]].
* The Pogues love to do this, often combining it with [[Lyrical Dissonance]].
* Most [[The Doors|Doors]] songs can be interpreted as Sanity Slippage Songs. It's quite explicit in "Celebration Of The Lizard King":
{{quote|''Once I had a little game''
''I liked to crawl back in my brain''
''I think you know the game I mean''
''I mean the game called "go insane"'' }}
* [[The Crystalline Effect]]'s songs "Blue Sea" and (possibly) "Hypothermia".
* Showbread's "I Think I'm Going to See You". Also overlaps with [[Love Makes You Crazy]].
{{quote|There's a hole in the fabric of my sanity
and it's getting big enough to see through
and on the other side of losing my mind
I think I'm going to see you. }}
* [[Linkin Park]]'s songs "One Step Closer", "Papercut", and "Crawling".
* [[Three Days Grace]]'s "Animal I Have Become"
* [[Bob Dylan]]'s "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", a satire of someone buying too much into the [[Red Scare]] and going paranoid bonkers as a result. [[Played for Laughs]] all the way.
* Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks". Once you realise the lyrics are about a boy getting ready to go on a shooting...
{{quote|All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet }}
* [[The Lonely Island]]'s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c "Like A Boss"] sounds like a Sanity Slippage Song [[Played for Laughs]]. A day in the life of The Boss seems normal enough at first {"''Talk to Corporate LIKE A BOSS! Approve memos LIKE A BOSS! Lead a workshop LIKE A BOSS! Remember birthdays LIKE A BOSS!''") but then The Boss gets [[Love Makes You Crazy|rejected by Deborah]], and things go downhill '''fast.'''
* "Pull Me Under" and "Panic Attack" by [[Dream Theater]] both seem to be about this.
* [[The Veronicas]] have done this many many times, Hook Me Up, When It All Falls Apart, Heavily Broken, Hollywood, Insomnia and How Long, Thus far.
* [[Delta Goodrem]], Nobody Listened:
{{quote|''Like a train, off the rails, to you''}}
* [[I Fight Dragons]] has a song called cRaZie$, although the lyrics may also be interpreted as a sort of "visionaries are seen as crazy" song, depending on how you look at it.
{{quote|"Woah-oh-oh, there's a body on the floor, and the crazies, the crazies are coming to life. Woah-oh-oh, I can't take it any more, 'cuz they're crazy, they're crazy, but maybe they're right!" }}
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APACHZLKjQg&feature=g-like&context=G2650038ALTu6q2gADAA "Personal Demons" by Rufus Rex,] a side project of [[Creature Feature]], is chock full of crazy, complete with an allusion to Radiohead's "Climbing Up the Walls" ("It's just a matter of time / Till I lose my mind / And start crawling up the walls"). Heck, the opening verse goes:
{{quote|''Psychosis must be setting in,''
''Clouding my perception,''
''Social interaction null and void.''
''Contact with reality''
''Is something I no longer need.''
''Now I have insanity on my side!'' }}
* Unexpect's songs from the album "In A Flesh Aquarium" and "Fables Of The Sleepless Empire" are ALL about madness and hallucinations and illusions and wonders incomprehensible. [http://www.darklyrics.com/u/unexpect.html Just read any of these song's lyrics.]
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99l1c1Zlmg He Used To Cut The Grass]" from [[Frank Zappa]]'s ''Joe's Garage''
{{quote|Wait! I've got it!
I'll be sullen and withdrawn
I'll dwindle off into the twilight realm of my own secret thoughts
I'll walk through the parking lot in a semi-catatonic state
And dream of Guitar notes to go with the loading-zone announcements... }}
* "Disturbance" and "Cherry Blossom Clinic" by The Move. The former more or less describing an individual's growing psychosis as he grows older; the latter having another person describing various hallucinations he sees as he goes mad in the mental hospital.
* "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies subverts this trope, because while other characters in the song think the protagonist is going insane, the protagonist doesn't.
** Though the structure of the song strongly indicates that their accusations [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|actually cause him to gradually go insane]].
* Many, ''many'' songs by [[Van der Graaf Generator]] and its frontman [[Face of the Band|Peter Hammill]] qualify as this, but the finest example is the [[Epic Rocking|twenty-three minute epic]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNAO7uDH0M8 "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers."] It [[Mind Screw|seems]] to be about a lighthouse keeper who inadvertantly allows a ship to crash, then slowly drives himself mad with guilt, grief, and loneliness.
* Sweating Bullets by "Megadeth". The video further proves the fact.
* [[Vanessa Amorosi]]: "I Thought We'd Stay Together" discusses her [[Heroic RROD]] and shutting down creativity after a long term boyfriend left her, because of differing opinions, she then proceeds to mention how much she wants to burn her house down because he used to love her there...and how it makes her very very angry.
* "As Madness Took Me" and "Calling My Name" by Dragonland, the latter of which contains audio clips from Charles Manson.
* "Last Resort" By Papa Roach is a song about someone slowly giving into depression.
* "Spies" by Coldplay is about a paranoid schizophrenic. [[Fridge Horror|It's creepy for a Coldplay song once you know that]].
* [[ABBA]]'s "The Visitors" is about a recluse, terrified of the people insistently knocking on her door (implied to be mental health officials, possibly with police). The refrain repeats the phrase "I'm cracking up" several times.


==  [[Theatre]] ==
* [[Stephen Sondheim]] really seems to like these:
** ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'': The title character's awesome [[Villain Song]] "Epiphany" is about him completely losing it after his first attempt at revenge goes wrong, and declaring a vendetta upon the entire human race.
**  [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn1aAbY2aaE&feature=related Franklin Shepard Inc] from ''[[Merrily We Roll Along]]''.
** "Rose's Turn" from ''Gypsy''.
** "Getting Married Today" from ''[[Company]]''.
* ''[[Les Misérables (theatre)|Les Misérables]]'' features [[Knight Templar|Inspector]] [[Inspector Javert|Javert]]'s stunning [[Driven to Suicide|closer]]:
{{quote|And must I now begin to doubt,
Who never doubted all these years?
My heart is stone and still it trembles
The world I have known is lost in shadow. }}
* "The Madness of King Scar" from [[The Musical|the stage version]] of [[The Lion King]]. If you thought Scar was a [[Large Ham]] in the movie...
* "No Good Deed" from [[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]] could be a prime example as it is a song about Elphaba rocketing through the 7 stages of grief before her sanity shatters like glass around 3/4 of the way through.
* "Can't Keep Out The Night" from ''[[Moby Dick]]! The Musical''. Also known as Ahab's sleep-deprived rock-solo freakout.
* "The World Has Gone Insane" from ''[[Jekyll and Hyde]]''.
* In classical music this is a stock convention of Bel Canto opera—the heroine is so overcome with grief at the tragic circumstances that she finds herself in that she goes temporarily or permanently insane, and [[The Ophelia|has a "mad scene."]] Basically just an excuse for the composer to write amazing vocal pyrotechnics. One of the most famous and possibly the [[Trope Codifier]] for opera is the mad scene from Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor''. Outside of bel canto, probably the most notable one (and definitely the most famous ''male'' mad scene in opera) is the titular character's final aria in ''[[Peter Grimes]]''.
* "Ez a kez utoler" ("This Is The Hand That Will Strike") from the Hungarian version of ''[[Romeo Et Juliette De La Haine a Lamour|Romeo et Juliette de la Haine a l'Amour]]''. While its French counterpart, "C'est le jour", appeared in Act II and served mainly to exposit on Tybalt's [[Kissing Cousins|obsession with Juliet]], the Hungarian version puts it midway through Act I, right after Tybalt has had a major epileptic fit, and the song becomes the frightening yet [[Cry for the Devil|pity-inducing]] rant of a clearly unwell man. The way the actor on the DVD performance drops into just ''screaming'' is seriously terrifying.
* Moritz in [[Spring Awakening]] starts to sound rather crazy in "Don't Do Sadness" as he is  {{spoiler|driven to suicide, and accuses the world around him to be a cold, uncaring one.}} It seems like a combination of this and a normal [[BSOD Song]].
{{quote|Awful sweet to be a little butterfly
Just wingin' over things, and nothin' deep inside.
Nothing going, going wild in you, you know.
You're slowing by the riverside, or floatin' high and blue! }}
* Judas' final song in ''[[Jesus Christ Superstar]]''.
* "Down With Love" from ''Hooray For What!'' is sometimes this. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rO1vtneCZY&feature=related Barbra Streisand] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYE-gSTwB20 Audra McDonald] have both done it this way, [[Crowning Music of Awesome|and it's]] ''[[Crowning Music of Awesome|awesome.]]''


== Web Original ==
* "Slipping"(!) from ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog|Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog]]''. "My Eyes" conveys an increasingly depressed, cynical mindset, but "Slipping" is flat-out out mad.
** I contend that "Brand New Day" and "Everything You Ever" are the two Sanity Slippage Songs of ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog|Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog]]''
*** Really, the whole damn ''musical'' is a sanity slippage song. Everything from "My Eyes" onwards is a slow downward spiral. Who knows how the planned sequel can possibly make things worse for him **shudders**
**** It's a [[Joss Whedon]] production. He'll find a way.
** Also in ''[[Commentary! The Musical]]'', Dr. Horrible's [[Captain Obvious|musical commentary]], "All About the Art" and to an even greater extent, "Neil's Song" are perfect examples of this trope.
{{quote|"''What was his name?
What should I say?
The choices are endless...
And here I am, at last alone, and friendless...
No I'm not friendless.
I've got some friends!
They'll be here when this ends...
'''If''' this ends...''" }}
* To show off her snobbery, [[The Nostalgia Chick]] plays the Barber Of Seville overture whenever she's driven to madness by [[Fridge Logic]].
* [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] resorts to "Combine Harvesters" by The Wurzels during his freak-outs.


== Western Animation ==
* John Weldon’s 1996 short film “Scant Sanity” is essentially a multi-part, animated Sanity Slippage Song.
* Played with in the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "The Sting" in that Leela does not sing, but she's imagining the others singing (and participating in a [[Disney Acid Sequence]]).
{{quote|'''Leela:''' I'm cracking up. In my dreams I'm happy because Fry is alive. But when I'm awake, my mind plays tricks on me.
'''Hermes:''' Oh, take it easy, Leela.
'''Amy:''' In every life we have some trouble.
'''Bender:''' But when you worry, you make it [[Rhymes on a Dime|double]]. 
'''Amy:''' And ''(suddenly starts singing)'' don't worry, be happy! 
''(The song goes on until it concludes and the scene returns to normal.)'' 
'''Leela:''' Uh, were you just singing? 
'''Bender:''' No, I was telling you not to worry. I'm not allowed to sing. Court order. }}


== Other ==
* A ''lot'' of [[Vocaloid]] songs tend to fit in this trope.
* According to one of her routines, [[Maria Bamford]], on advice from her therapist, has come up with an "anxiety song" that she sings to reassure herself and fight off all her various neuroses.
{{quote|If I keep the kitchen floor clean, no one will die
As long as I clench my fists at odd intervals, then the darkness within me won't force me to do anything inappropriately viiii-lent or sexual at dinner parties...
As long as I keep humming the tune, I won't "turn gay"
It can't getcha if you're singin' a song! Yeah! }}

{{reflist}}
[[Category:Madness Tropes]]
[[Category:Musical Number Index]]
[[Category:Music Tropes]]
[[Category:Sanity Slippage Song]]