Songs about mental illness

[Monkster]

What are some songs written about mental illness? Off the top of my head I can think of Split Enz - Dirty Creature, any others?

 

[JSFish]

Sunday Morning Call - Oasis. As far as I know that's got something to do with some form of mental illness, based on the film clip and some of the lyrics it seems like it.

 

[Fossie 32]

Comfortably Numb

Manic Depression

 

[Skeppersap]

Unwell - Matchbox 20

 

[anti.]

Unwell - Matchbox 20

no, they mean songs about people mentally ill. not songs written by mentally ill.

 

[Bomber32]

Brain Damage - Pink Floyd
19th Nervous Breakdown - Rolling Stones

 

[Fossie 32]

The Fool On The Hill

 

[Suspense]

Radiohead - Climbing Up The Walls

Mercury Rev - Chasing A Bee

Throwing Muses - Mania

Acid Bath - Fingerpaintings Of The Insane

King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man

 

[sawf]

Welcome Home (Sanitarium)

 

[John]

King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man

I have never read that anywhere. Do you have a link? Brilliant lyricist was Pete Sinfield.

 

[John]

Becoming Something Other by Chris Knox. A lyric that tells of a phone conversation with his dying father who is slipping into mental decay and is near death.

Chris Knox has written several songs about mental illness.

 

[SwampCreature]

I can't beleive no-one's got this yet.

anna's song - Silverchair.

Top track.

 

[Suspense]

I have never read that anywhere. Do you have a link? Brilliant lyricist was Pete Sinfield.

The lyrics?

Cat's foot, iron claw,
Neuro-surgeons scream for more,
At paranoia's poision door
Twenty-first century schizoid man.

Blood rack, barbed wire,
Politicians' funeral pyre,
Innocents r*ped with napalm fire
Twenty-first century schizoid man.

Death seed, blind man's greed,
Poets' starving children bleed,
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty-first century schizoid man.

Hmm, more of a comment on society with mental illness connotations. Fits in very well with the music...

 

[John]

The lyrics?

Cat's foot, iron claw,
Neuro-surgeons scream for more,
At paranoia's poision door
Twenty-first century schizoid man.

Blood rack, barbed wire,
Politicians' funeral pyre,
Innocents r*ped with napalm fire
Twenty-first century schizoid man.

Death seed, blind man's greed,
Poets' starving children bleed,
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty-first century schizoid man.

Hmm, more of a comment on society with mental illness connotations. Fits in very well with the music...

I am a huge King Crimson fan and have read a fair bit on them but have not heard that the lyrics meant too much. Pete Sinfield is a bit like that .

I guess in the end it is what the individual gets out of it. Great song though. One for the ages.

 

[DaRick]

Anthrax - Madhouse (?)

 

[Vinnie Vegas]

Epicure - Tightrope Walker

Kills me every time. You can feel the heartbreak in the words.

Lithium by Nirvana and Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon both come to mind as well, but both are very different songs. Excitable Boy is more of a metaphor really, anyway.

 

[NagoyaDog]

Veronica by Elvis Costello.

I believe that he wrote the song about his grandmother who was suffering from Alzheimer`s disease.

 

[CaptainDavey]

I can't beleive no-one's got this yet.

anna's song - Silverchair.

Top track.

I always thought it was about anorexia and the issues Daniel Johns had with it? Maybe? I might have that wrong.

Everybody Knows That You're Insane - QOTSA, fantastic song

 

[Fossie 32]

They're Coming To Take Me Away

My Name Is Jack - Mannfred Mann

 

[Angus1]

I always thought it was about anorexia and the issues Daniel Johns had with it? Maybe? I might have that wrong.

No you are correct.
The song is definitely about anorexia.

"And you're my obsession
I love you to the bones
And Ana wrecks your life
Like an Anorexia life"

 

[Angus1]

Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Pink Floyd
It's a song about Syd who was wacko.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Pink Floyd - Brain Damage/Eclipse
Metallica - Welcome Home (sanitarium)
Metallica - The Frayed Ends of Sanity
Megadeth - Sweating Bullets
Anthrax - Madhouse
Savatage - Mentally Yours
Savatage - Thorazine Shuffle
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Annihilator - Brain Dance
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Slayer - Dead Skin Mask
Motorhead - Asylum Choir
Slash's Snakepit - Serial Kiiller

That's it for now... Might think of others and if I do, I'll throw 'em down.

 

[materamagic]

The down and out but defiant ballad that Tom Petty put out in the middle of his battle with depression in the mid to late 90's called Echo has these lines which speak for themselves.....

It's the same sad echo when you lie
It's the same sad echo when you try to be clear
It's the same as the same sad echo around here

Well, I woke up right here
In a pool of sweat
With a box of pills and you
Yeah, and I'm gonna keep my head
I'm gonna keep my cool
Oh, I'm so in love with you
Yes and in another world nothing was like this
There may have been a girl
There never was a kiss

The poison came in liquid
She was naked all the time
And no one could explain it
It was all between the lines
And I don't seem to trust anyone no more
It could be faith I'm just not sure

It's the same sad echo every day
Yeah the same sad echo another way
When you call
It's the same as the same sad echo most of all

Well you just got tired
You just gave in
You took it hard
Then you just quit
You let me down
You dropped the ball
You fell on your face most of all
And I don't want to mean anything to you
I don't want to tempt you to be true

 

[raskolnikov]

Macy Gray - The Letter

 

[Eggzoi]

The entire Sleep Parade LP (Things will always change) was influenced by the singers Dad developing Schizophrenia.
Good album.