Released May 26, 1992 Length 4:22 | Format CD, Cassette, Vinyl Label Slash | |
Recorded Coast Recorders and Brilliant Studios, San Francisco, California January – March 1992 Genre Alternative metal, funk metal | ||
"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.
Contents
Music and lyrics
"Midlife Crisis" is an alternative metal and funk metal song, which incorporates progressive rock and hip hop elements.
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 that "it's more about creating false emotion, being emotional, dwelling on your emotions and in a sense inventing them" and that:
Production
During production the song was given the working title of "Madonna" which was later maintained as a setlist name during live performances. 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 The bridge features a sample of "Car Thief" by the Beastie Boys.
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. Singer Mike Patton can also be seen dancing around holding a spade.
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 twice, 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. It is a master track song on Rock Band 3, with the fade-out ending edited for gameplay reasons.