Tears for Fears hail Susan Boyle's version of 'Mad World' as their favourite cover
It's been covered countless times over the years
Last updated 1st Nov 2023
Tears for Fears have singled out Susan Boyle’s “incredible” version of ‘Mad World’ as their favourite cover of their timeless 1982 track.
The new series of Tim’s Listening Party launched on Absolute Radio last night (29th October) with Tears for Fears’ Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal joining Tim Burgess to discuss their seminal 1983 debut album ‘The Hurting.’
Penned by Roland and sung by Curt, Tears for Fears’ beguiling third single ‘Mad World’ proved to be a huge international smash hit 40 years ago reaching Number 3 in the UK, and the Top 10 in various countries around the world.
The song enjoyed a fresh wave of popularity 20 years later when American singer Gary Jules covered it for the soundtrack to the psychological thriller Donnie Darko. It was the UK's Christmas Number 1 that year and it remained at the chart summit for three weeks.
Such is its enduring appeal, numerous artists have also covered ‘Mad World’ over the years including Adam Lambert, Demi Lovato, Pentatonix and Kelly Clarkson to name but a few.
During the Tim's Listening Party, Tim asked Roland and Curt whether they have a favourite cover of ‘Mad World’ from over the decades.
Without a moment of hesitation, Roland replied: “Yeah, Susan Boyle. I mean it’s quite incredible. It’s on her album (2011’s ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’).
“Sometimes you don’t know who’s covering it as it gets covered all the time but Susan Boyle does it beautifully.”
He added: “I’ll tell you another one who does it well is Lily Allen. It’s just like ‘wow!’”
Revealing another of their favourites, Curt added: “Brandi Carlile as well, which is very cool. She just did it on Twitter – it was her at home playing it.”
Elsewhere in the chat with Tim, Roland and Curt spoke about how ‘Mad World’ was originally intended to be a B-side to ‘Pale Shelter (You Don’t Give Me Love)’ and almost didn’t get released at all.
“When we got to doing ‘Mad World’ (it) was lying around (and) was due to be the B-Side of ‘Pale Shelter’ during its first release,” Roland explained.
“We took it into the record company and Dave (Bates) said ‘no’. He goes, ‘nah, nah, nah!’” He said ‘that’s a single’, and I went ‘really?! Okay.’ Which was when we started working with Chris Hughes and we recorded that and the combination of all the people, the right place at right time, and Curt sang it absolutely brilliantly. And the rest is history.”
Listen to Tears for Fears on Tim's Listening Party:
Curt added: “No, we were lucky enough at that point in time, which I honestly don't believe would happened today. As Roland said, we had two songs - we had ‘Suffer the Children’ and ‘Pale Shelter’ and they released both those and we were only signed for two singles.
“But Dave Bates for all his faults, he can be a little opinionated at times, but we love him… But he convinced the label that we should they should sign us for an album. So even though we had two singles that did nothing effectively - they got some radio play - but he convinced them to let us do an album and ‘Mad World’ was the first song effectively off the album.
“We thought at that point in time it was just to get us some critical acclaim. I don’t think even Dave thought it was going to be a hit single. They thought it was just the coolest thing on the album and magazines which were important back then, like NME and things like that and John Peel, they would love this track because it's interesting and it's different. I don't think anyone really expected it to take off the way it did.”
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