A major · Camelot 11B · 108 BPM
Midlife Crisis
by Faith No More
- 108
- BPM
- A major
- Key
- 11B
- Camelot
- 67
- Danceability
- 0
- Acousticness
Mike Patton wrote "Midlife Crisis" after watching Madonna on television and in magazines, sensing that her image hid some sort of desperation. Faith No More's vocalist denied the song was about an actual midlife crisis, saying he did not know what one would feel like, and described it instead as being about creating false emotion and inventing feelings. During production the track carried the working title "Madonna", a name kept on setlists for live performances.
Slash and Reprise Records released the song on May 25, 1992 as the first single from Angel Dust, the band's fourth album. It went to number one on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, their only song to do so, and reached number 10 in the UK. The drum track sampled the first bar of Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecilia", repeated throughout, while the bridge borrowed from the Beastie Boys' "Car Thief".
Kevin Kerslake directed the music video, having also shot their low-budget clip for "Everything's Ruined". An uncensored version, included on the Who Cares a Lot? The Greatest Videos collection, shows a man being stretched by four horses during the bridge, a nod to the old punishment of quartering; the censored cut replaced those shots with choirboys running toward a large cross. Patton can be seen dancing with a spade, and the video used a slightly different mix referred to on some promotional releases as 'The Scream' mix.
Midlife Crisis runs at 108 BPM, the tempo of mid-tempo pop, dancehall and indie. In classical terms it sits in moderato territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.22 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 556 ms. It is in A major, Camelot 11B, which shares its notes with F# minor and mixes cleanly with D major and E major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.