Lindsey Buckingham - Go Insane (1984) {Elektra US LP) 24/192

Go Insane is the second solo album by American singer/songwriter and Fleetwood Mac vocalist/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. The album was released in 1984 while Fleetwood Mac was on a hiatus between albums. It reached #45 on the US Billboard album chart.













Track listing

All tracks composed by Lindsey Buckingham; except where indicated

01 "I Want You" (Buckingham, Fordyce) - 3:18
02 "Go Insane" - 3:08
03 "Slow Dancing" - 4:05
04 "I Must Go" - 4:51
05 "Play in the Rain" - 3:21
06 "Play in the Rain (Continued)" - 4:14
07 "Loving Cup" - 5:02
09 "Bang the Drum" - 3:31
10 "D.W. Suite" - 6:50

(On the vinyl version, there is a "locked groove" at the end of Side One on the song "Play in the Rain". This allows the closing section of the song to play continually.)

All but '"D.W. Suite" documents Buckingham's break up with long-time girlfriend Carol Ann Harris, who the album is dedicated to.






Credits

Lindsey Buckingham - Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Percussion, Fairlight CMI, LinnDrum, Vocals, Pump organ (Track 8), Lap Harp (Track 9),

Additional personnel

Gordon Fordyce - Keyboards and Cowbell (Track 1)
Bryant Simpson - Bass (Track 2)



Singles

"Go Insane" was the title track of Lindsey Buckingham's second solo album. Released as a single, 3 July 1984, it became Buckingham's second solo hit (after "Trouble", three years earlier). "Go Insane" is Buckingham's most recent US solo hit (peaking at #23 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart); on the other hand, it did not chart in the United Kingdom.



Meaning


Lindsey Buckingham has said, when asked about the meaning of the song, insanity can be said to be very relative to the context you find yourself in. An example might be a very acceptable and typical behavior for a group of people in a little rock and roll microcosm, might be grounds for someone being committed if they worked in a bank.

"Looking at it that way we all tend to go insane a little bit, I think that's ok. I think that's one of the things the album is saying - it is ok to go insane, it can be quite cathartic actually, to watch yourself go out to the edge and sort of reel yourself back in - now hopefully you do reel yourself back in.

"Another point the album makes is if you happen to be with someone else who takes that sort of behavior too far, and you're not willing to give up whatever that relationship might be - then you will tend to go a little bit insane with them.

"And if they are doing that you will experience a lot of the things they are simply by virtue of being a part of that. The important thing is not to take it too far, I guess."

At the time, he had a relationship that was close to ending (or maybe had just ended) with Carol Ann Harris. According to Buckingham, she was using drugs and Buckingham tried to stop her, but with no results. Two of his lines, "I lost my power in this world / Cause I did not use it", could be interpreted to be about how he had waited too long to try and stop her. Harris, however, in her book "Storms," claims that she only used the drug with the band and her friends and Buckingham used it in equal abundance.



Other versions

At concerts, notably on The Dance, he did an acoustic flamenco-styled version of Go Insane, which featured just him and a nylon-string guitar.

During the 2008 Gift of Screws tour, as well as Fleetwood Mac's 2009 Unleashed tour, he played the original version of the song.


Popular culture

The song was featured in the Miami Vice first season episode "The Great McCarthy."





Review

by William Ruhlmann

Lindsey Buckingham's second album, like his first, Law and Order, was a triumph of studio wizardry over songwriting craft. Buckingham's work was ear-catching, but once he'd gotten your attention with some gimmicky sound effect or busy arrangement, he had very little to tell you. The exception was Go Insane's most ambitious piece, the closing track, "D.W. Suite," on which Buckingham, always strongly influenced by the Beach Boys, took on what sounded like an elaborate tribute to Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, who died while the album was being made. The title track, which also had massed choral sounds (all made by Buckingham) reminiscent of a Fleetwood Mac track, became a Top 40 hit, but the album lacked the accessibility to make it more than a moderate seller, and at least at this point it appeared that Buckingham's solo albums were going to serve as laboratory experiments in which he tried out new musical ideas before bringing them to greater popular attention through Fleetwood Mac.