History Main / SanitySlippageSong

* "UsefulNotrs/{{Paris}} is a Lonely Town"from ''WesternAnimation/GayPurree'', as Mewsette contemplates suicide.

* The lyrics to ''The World'' from ''Anime/DotHackSign'' might qualify given the nature of the series. They start out in 3rd person talking about loneliness and insanity, and end in a 1st person reluctant acceptance.

* ''Paris is a Lonely Town'' from ''WesternAnimation/GayPurree'', as Mewsette contemplates suicide.

* Spinel's introduction in WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseTheMovie is a mixture of this and VillainSong. The electric swing is an especially nice touch and really lends it that cartoonish feel, considering many early cartoons employed jazz music in their scores.

* [[Music/RoxyMusic Bryan Ferry's]] "Help Me", the song that is playing at the bar in ''Film/TheFly1986'', was originally commissioned to underscore the film's end credits but contrasted too much with Howard Shore's lush orchestral score to be an effective playout. The lyrics, reflecting the tragic dissolution of the protagonist's body and mind to BodyHorror, have the singer pleading for his lover to ''hopefully'' lead him back to himself via ThePowerOfLove. For bonus points, Ferry's body language in the music video produced for it suggests he's trapped and writhing in a straitjacket.

* ''Bombshell'', the central ShowWithinAShow of ''{{Series/Smash}}'', features a song-and-dance called "Let's Be Bad" that shows a drug-addled Marilyn Monroe barely making it through a movie's musical number and not knowing whether the crew's effusive praise is real or not.

* "The World Has Gone Insane" from Theatre/JekyllAndHyde.

When these songs aren't part of a musical, listeners may ask WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs

* ''Theatre/Frankenstein2014'' has [[https://youtu.be/qM5cC644DsY "The Grand Beginning of the History of the Creation of Life", in which the execution of Victor's dear friend Henri (who died in Victor's place) pushes him to enact the plans he's been preparing for ages, to create life -- namely, to resurrect Henri. Some DeathlyDiesIrae and a lot more, as the song shifts from melody to melody, reflecting Victor's grief.

* The extremely aptly named "The Breakdown" from ''Theatre/WeAreTheTigers'' is about as textbook with this trope as it gets. It also overlaps heavily with a textbook VillainSong.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLorax'':
** "How Bad Can I Be?" in begins with The Once-ler innocently asking how growing his business is a bad thing...and ends with him shouting the lyric with a [[SlasherSmile deranged grin]] as a challenge as he obliterates the forest.

* In "Aiutami" from ''Theatre/TheLightInThePiazza'', Fabrizio has a meltdown over what he thinks is the end of him and Clara. His father, his brother, and his sister-in-law get sucked into the madness, encouraged by his mother.

-->So give me passion

* ''VideoGame/TadpoleTreble'' has two. [[spoiler:The secret pause menu song]] eventually descends into this, and [[spoiler:the final boss's song]] has elements as well.

* "The Ballad of Sara Berry" from ''35mm: A Musical Exhibition'' is about the titular character trying to become the prom queen, growing more and more obsessed with it until she ends up [[spoiler:killing all the other candidates to win by default.]]

* '''Film/AnnaAndTheApocalypse:''' "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now" sung by the villain Mr. Savage, he goes crazy prancing around the kitchen. At one point, the song seemingly ends, only for him to abruptly sing again.

* The extremely aptly named "The Breakdown" from ''Theatre/{{WeAreTheTigers}}'' is about as textbook with this trope as it gets. It also overlaps heavily with a textbook VillainSong.

[[folder:Music]]
* Almost all of the songs on ''Misery Loves Me'''s debut album ''Amnesia,'' but "Endless Night" is a notable example for being the song which literally showcases the process of the main character slowly falling into insanity, and even fetures a different voice for her dark thoughts. Also, there's a lot of screaming:
--> SO LET ME AWAKEN!
* Quite a few ''Music/CannibalCorpse'' songs, the one most well known being "Hammer Smashed Face."
--> Something's inside me, it's coming out
--> I feel like killing you
--> Let loose of the anger, held back too long, my blood runs cold
--> Through my anatomy dwells another being
--> Rooted in my cortex, a servant to its bidding.
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ip1irYWXck I'm Only Joking]]" by ''Music/{{KONGOS}}'' sounds like one also. At best, it's about someone talking insane without realizing it.
* Very common in denpa song. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkFjyMfAR9o Totemotomotachi by Millirobo.beta]] is one such example.
* "Mama's Broken Heart" by ''Music/MirandaLambert'' may primarily be a breakup song, but it's made quite clear that the singer has descended into insanity, and it's strongly implied that she now wishes to murder her ex.
* Music/TheRamones do this a lot. For example, "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment" and "I Wanna Be Sedated," among others.
* "Something to Live For" by ''Music/ShannonWright'' and ''Music/YannTiersen''. What kind of relationship does this woman actually have?! Arguably Yann Tiersen's "A Secret Place" as well.
* Music/{{Fireaxe}}'s four hour RockOpera ''Music/FoodForTheGods'' has several: "Hatred Revenge and Death," "Tapestry of Pain," and "River of Madness" come to mind.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8-sMJZTYf0 "Bodies"]] by ''Music/DrowningPool'' -- as the name suggests. Either this or a MurderBallad depending on how you interpret the lyrics. Not to mention [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnFMH68yvB0 "Tear Away"]].
* "The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown)" by Music/FleetwoodMac, written by Peter Green about his RealLife SanitySlippage. He left the band not long afterwards. Later covered by Music/JudasPriest.
* Pick a ''Foetus'' song. '''[[MadArtist Any Foetus song.]]'''
* Music/TheMountainGoats' "Wild Sage."
** 'Lovecraft in Brooklyn' is a good example as well.
* "Psycho Killer" from Music/TalkingHeads
** Arguably "Cities" as well. The music is very frantic, a lot of the lyrics don't make much sense, and at one point the singer actually says "But it all works out -- you know, I'm a little freaked out!"
** "Memories Can't Wait" as well. Creepy music with weird droning and electronic wailing sounds in the background, and the lyrics are like this:
--->''There's a party in my mind and I hope it never stops / There's a party up there all the time / They'll party 'til they drop / Other people can go home / Other people they can split / I'm stuck here all the time / I can never quit...''
** Y'know, we could probably just classify ''Fear of Music'' as a Sanity Slippage Album. The other songs are about things like how air can hurt you, distrust of animals, [[SingingSimlish complete nonsense]], and [[WatchItStoned drugs]].
* "Don't Let Me Down" by Music/TheChainsmokers feat. Daya tells of the singer slowly losing her grip and desperately reaching out to [[LivingEmotionalCrutch the one person she feels (or at least hopes) she can count on]].
-->So, don't let me, don't let me, don't let me down.
-->I think I'm losing my mind now.
-->It's in my head. Darling, I hope
-->That you'll be here when I need you the most.
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4 They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!]]" by Napoleon XIV. Apparently, his mind broke when his dog ran away. We get her side of the story in another song.
** Bonus points as the B-side of the single is "[[SdrawkcabName !aaaaah-aaH yawA eM ekaT ot gnimoC eryehT]]"
*** All but one of Napoleon XIV's songs qualify for this trope. Of course, [[NapoleonDelusion it's quite fitting]], [[MeaningfulName given the name]].
* A number of ''of Montreal'' songs.
* "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" by Morrissey
* Music/{{Queen}}:
** "Stone Cold Crazy" from ''Music/SheerHeartAttack'' is narrated by a guy who believes he's UsefulNotes/AlCapone, acting out his delusions on the street.
** "I'm Going Slightly Mad" off of the band's penultimate album, ''Music/{{Innuendo}}'', acts as a reflection on frontman Music/FreddieMercury's own struggle with AIDS-related dementia. This being Queen, the song takes a darkly comedic look at the issue by portraying it in a number of witty and cartoonish ways, up to and including the line "I think I'm a banana tree."
* "Flagpole Sitta" by Music/HarveyDanger is a tongue-in-cheek example riffing on angsty songs that were popular among the youth of TheNineties.
* "Unwell" by Matchbox Twenty. It denies being one of these ("I'm not crazy, I'm just a little [[TitleDrop unwell]]"), but it's increasingly obvious that the narrator is lying to himself. Unusually, the overall intention seems to be to humanize mental illness and make the listener feel that the narrator is just a normal person who happens to be going through a horrible thing.
** "Disease" is also a confused admirer's/ObsessionSong with some very depressive lyrics..
---> "I can't live without you, tell me what I'm supposed to do about it"
---> "Keep your distance from me, don't pay no attention to me, I got a disease"
* "Art of Life," "Week End," and "Drain" by Music/XJapan. "Art of Life" is an aversion here, since it's a song that starts out as a Sanity Slippage Song, but is actually the story of recovery from a mental and physical breakdown....
** "Doubt," "Hurry Go Round," "Genkai Haretsu," "Breeding" (oh god yes "Breeding"), "Lemoned I Scream," "Drink or Die," and "Sold Some Attitude" by [[Music/HidetoMatsumoto hide]] are ''all' Sanity Slippage Songs.
* Music/PinkFloyd:
** "Brain Damage".
** ''Music/TheWall'' is a SanitySlippage ConceptAlbum.
** "One of My Turns".
** "Jugband Blues" by Floyd's original front man Music/SydBarrett. Who actually ''did'' have mental issues, likely brought on or at least exacerbated by drug use.
*** Much of Barrett's output provides examples of this trope, both from his tenure in Pink Floyd and as a solo artist. Some of his examples with Floyd, such as "Vegetable Man" and "Scream Thy Last Scream (Old Woman with a Casket)", weren't officially released until 2016 as his bandmates felt they were too voyeuristic, though they were available on [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes bootlegs]] for quite some time.
* "Angry Chair" by Music/AliceInChains.
* "The Garden" by Music/GunsNRoses.
* "Am I Going Insane (Radio)" by Music/BlackSabbath. And while we're on the subject, how can we possibly forget "Paranoid"? There is also the less well-known "Megalomania" which could be viewed as a continuation piece.
** Heck, most of Music/OzzyOsbourne's stuff in general might qualify. "Crazy Train" is the best example.
* "All So Nice in the Nuthouse" by Chad Morgan
* "Inmate's Lullaby" - Music/GentleGiant
* Music/TheyMightBeGiants
** "Absolutely Bill's Mood":
--->''My room is comfortably small\\
With rubber lining the walls\\
And there's someone always calling my name\\
He calls when I'm alone\\
And he calls when I'm not home\\
And he calls when I'm stuck out in the rain\\
I'm insane, I'm insane!\\
I'm insane, I'm insane!''
** "Subliminal" is about a man who starts seeing subliminal messages everywhere he goes after a car accident.
--->''As I got hit by a car, there was a message for me\\
As I went through the windshield, I noticed something\\
Subliminal, in an unnoticeable way\\
Important and hard to see''
** "Apophenia" has a narrator who's not only a bit crazy, but is projecting his delusional paranoia onto his partner, [[MindScrew who might not even exist]].
--->''Picture of a hunched old lady holding a dog and\\
Telling you what to do\\
Seemingly random arrangement of turbid material\\
Telling you what to do\\
It’s only tea leaves\\
Stop being dramatic\\
Next thing you’ll be saying that I’ve been\\
Hallucinating you all along''
** "Unpronounceable", which is rumored to be based on a now famous Reddit post, where the poster describes living about ten years of life while unconscious for only a few minutes.
--->''Time stopped, when you said hello\\
When you left, the clock began to breathe again\\
Now all I do is think about the puzzle that remains\\
Your name it is unpronounceable\\
Distorted and illegible\\
I never figured out what that was\\
If I couldn't then I doubt I ever will\\
Rewind the tape, review the blur\\
Never the same, but still obscure\\
Turn up the sound and hear the white noise\\
Zoom and enhance if that were even a real thing, which it isn't\\
Stare at the static long enough you'll be hypnotized be hypnotized''
* "Mr. Psycho" and "Drop Dead" - Music/{{Space}}
* Music/OingoBoingo was ''built'' on this trope.
** "Insanity". If the lyrics aren't any indication, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSuvPuQM7qc go watch the music video]].
** "What You See" seems to be about a record company executive who growing more and more insane over the course of the song.
* In hip-hop, Music/{{Eminem}}'s "Stan" and "Kim".
* Most of the back catalogue of [[Music/The13thFloorElevators Roky Erikson]], often [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlenTPJ6uEw fairly explicitly]], but also expressed through mildly or entirely raving lyrics about aliens, demons, zombies, mutants, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7aLXehSXAo his time spent working in the Kremlin with a two-headed dog]].
* Also used to great effect in Peter Maxwell Davies' ''Eight Songs for a Mad King,'' a contemporary musical setting of some of King George the Third's ravings.
* "A Real Indication" by Angelo Badalamenti & The Thought Gang on the Twin Peaks:Fire walk with me Soundtrack. Oh, so very much...
* Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me". See the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY video]].
* Music/{{Disturbed}}'s "Down with the Sickness" tells of child abuse as a metaphor for society punishing the "freaks," but the main point is that the narrator has just snapped...
** "Voices".
** "Perfect Insanity"
* Music/DavidBowie's "All the Madmen" is about somebody who's afraid to leave the asylum and go back to drab normality. According to Bowie the world outside the asylum is the one that's insane.
** Another example is "Breaking Glass," in which the protagonist tells a girl "you're such a wonderful person/but you've got problems"...while psychotically trashing her entire bedroom.
** There's also "Janine" and "Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed." And possibly "Space Oddity" (if you interpret the lyrics to mean SpaceMadness).
** Also 'Candidate', where the unnamed protagonist propositions a prostitute for what starts out as a drink at a bar, and ends with joint suicide.
* "Le Café" by Oldelaf, PlayedForLaughs. The protagonist starts out polite and calm, and gradually gets more insane through the song [[KlatchianCoffee because of a caffeine high]]. He notably jumps up and down through Paris, [[DisproportionateRetribution kills his secretary for worrying about his whereabouts, a little old old lady for asking him what hour it is, and yells at his son who was just telling him he was first in class]].
* Music/TomLehrer's "I Hold Your Hand In Mine", from ''Music/SongsByTomLehrer'': starts out sounding romantic, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjPhFSlhOuQ quickly goes quite wrong]]. And more so with [[FromBadToWorse each succeeding verse....]]
* "Girl Anachronism" by the Dresden Dolls. ''Please excuse her for the day, it's just the way the medication makes her...''
** To continue on the Music/AmandaPalmer track, "Runs In The Family."
--> "Me, well I'm well, well I mean I'm in hell, well I still have my health, at least that's what they tell me, if wellness is this what in hell's name is sickness?
* Music/AliceCooper's ''Music/FromTheInside'' is a whole album of insanity songs. ''We're all crazy...'' Also "Ballad of Dwight Fry" from ''Music/LoveItToDeath''. Heck, let's just say 80% of Cooper's output...
** "Steven" seems to be about someone whose episodes are triggered by a baby's crying.
--> You've only lived a minute\\
of your life\\
I must be dreaming\\
please stop screaming\\
Is someone calling me\\
I hear my name!\\
STEVEN! (X3)
* "The Doctor's Wife" by ''The Music/ClockworkQuartet.'' A SteamPunk song about a doctor, trying and failing to cure his wife's deadly illness, over the course of several months. The [[TwistEnding ending]] is [[NightmareFuel amazing]].
* "Basket Case" by Music/GreenDay. This one notably suggests that the singer's turn to madness is completely unjustified; a therapist only tells him YouNeedToGetLaid and a prostitute then tells him to QuitYourWhining. The singer himself admits he is "melodramatic" and that he has "nothing" to whine about.
* "I Think I Lost My Headache", by Music/QueensOfTheStoneAge, is about (possibly drug-induced) paranoia and derails into sing-song trumpet noodling at the end.
-->It's all my head, I know, or so they tell me so...
* "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" by Music/{{Metallica}}, about the trials and tribulations of a [[BedlamHouse crazyhouse]] inmate.
** "Harvester of Sorrow" is about a man snapping out and possibly killing his family.
** Also, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Frayed Ends of Sanity]]
** Metallica ain't the only one with a sanity slippage song called "Welcome Home"- there's also Music/CoheedAndCambria. "Please make up your mind girl, before I hope you die..."
* Throwing Muses' ''Mania''. ''Who left me alone?! What do you mean, you're alone...''
** Or "Vicky's Box", from the Muses' first LP:
-->He won't ride in cars anymore/It reminds him of blowjobs/That he's a queer\\
And his hair stuck to the roof/Like a pigeon on a tire\\
...Home is where the heart lies/The heart lies/The hard lies/Welcome home\\
'''''[=WelCOME=] HOME!'''''\\
...I only love pieces of things that I hate\\
...You may be dreaming/You may be bleeding/You may be in this box\\
'''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking A kitchen is a place where you prePARE...and clean up.]]'''
* Roughly half the songs on Music/{{Eels}}' 1998 masterpiece ''Electro-Shock Blues'', such as "My Descent Into Madness", the title track, and "The Medication Is Wearing Off". The rest of the songs are mostly about death and grief. E's [[CreatorBreakdown sanity really was slipping]], but yours would too if you'd just gone through your schizophrenic sister committing suicide, your mother dying of cancer and your father dying of a heart attack in the space of two years.
** Several of the tracks are from the perspective of E's sister. Also notable on that front is the title track, which is taken from the diary she kept in the hospital.
* Music/{{Anberlin}}'s "Reclusion"
** "Hello Alone" doesn't paint a great picture of mental health, either.
* From First to Last's "Note to Self"
* Music/MotleyCrue has several, notably "Just another Psycho" and the unreleased track "Mood Ring".
* "Rose's Turn" from ''Gypsy'' is Rose's climactic nervous breakdown on stage.
** "Everything's Coming Up Roses" is another one for Rose. She's obviously not a very emotionally healthy person.
* Music/EmilieAutumn's "Opheliac".
** "God Help Me" with that MadnessMantra too.
** Pretty much everything from the Opheliac CD. Which makes sense, given [[CreatorBreakdown certain circumstances]].
** Unlaced is a sanity slippage instrumental album (Clearly about her time in a psych ward.)
* Music/IronMaiden's "The Clairvoyant".
--> I wonder why, I wonder how\\
That it seems that my power's getting stronger every day\\
I feel a strength, an inner fire\\
[[ParanoiaFuel But I'm scared I won't be able to control it anymore...]]
** Said lack of control power ends up causing a catastrophe in the album's storyline and "Only the Good Die Young" detailing how he's lost his sanity completely... [[RockMeAsmodeus sung by Lucifer himself.]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6hL6fkJ1_k Becoming Insane]] by Infected Mushroom.
--> Wake me up before I change again
--> Remind me the story that I won't get insane
--> Tell me why it's always the same
--> Explain me the reason why I'm so much in pain
* Half the songs on the Otep album ''House of Secrets'', where Otep adds to the distressing lyrics by alternating between MetalScream and [[NightmareFuel the voice of a terrified little girl]].
* Music/NoxArcana's ''Blackthorn Asylum'' is essentially a 21-track trope codifier. As the album's focus is on an insane asylum, loss of sanity and outright insanity are the big focus here. Bonus points for Nox Arcana being almost purely instrumental (there's a touch of narration), and ''still'' pulling it off.
** Also, the thirteenth track is titled ''Sanity Slipping''. No joke.
* Arguably, "Echoplex" by Music/NineInchNails.
** The album ''The Downward Spiral''.
** Also "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEjs01ibSJk Somewhat Damaged]]". Apparently it's the song Creator/TomHiddleston listens to when getting in the mood to play [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Loki]]:
-->''In the back, off the side and far away''
-->''Is a place where I hide, where I stay''
-->''Tried to say, tried to ask, I needed to''
-->''All alone, by myself, where were you?''
-->''How could I ever think it funny how''
-->''Everything they swore it wouldn't change, is different now''
-->''Just like you would always say, we'll make it through''
-->''Then my head fell apart, and where were you?''
-->''How could I ever think it funny how''
-->''Everything you swore would never change, is different now''
-->''Like you said, you and me, make it through''
-->''Didn't quite, fell apart, '''[[CarefulWithThatAxe WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?]]'''''
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfRhHqC3LII Slipping Away]]", [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin appropriately enough.]]
* Sugar by Music/SystemOfADown, especially at the end.
* "Binge And Purge" by Music/{{Clutch}}
* "I Am Slowly Going Crazy," a children's song of uncertain origin.
* Several of Happy Rhodes' songs; it's a theme throughout her very diverse musical omnibus.
* "The Painter" by Chris de Burgh, which is sung from the perspective of an unhinged and insanely jealous man murdering his wife for what appears to be an imaginary fling with the titular painter, and for plus points is also sung in a manner similar to PsychoStrings.
* "Climbing Up the Walls" by Music/{{Radiohead}}. "Do not cry out or hit the alarm, we are friends til we die."
** That track '''sounds''' scary. "No Surprises" however is so pretty and inoffensive, it could be played in supermarkets. Well...so long as [[LyricalDissonance no one pays attention]] to what Thom's singing:
-->A heart that's full up like a landfill\\
A job that slowly kills you\\
Bruises that won't heal\\
...A handshake of carbon monoxide
*** Not to mention that over the crescendo, the chorus is imperceptibly singing "get me out of here" over and over again.
** "Paranoid Android" too, at least in part.
*** Climbing up the Walls is possibly a Most Triumphant Example, even without understanding the lyrics.
** "Everything in its Right Place" and "How to Disappear Completely" are this, bordering on BSODSong. The lyrics of both consist almost entirely of MadnessMantra.
* "Madhouse" by Music/{{Anthrax}}.
* Many songs of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie_%28band%29 ''Agatha Christie'']], a russian gothic rock group.
* In ''Theatre/{{Ruddigore}}'', Despard and Margaret sing a song ("I once was a very abandoned person") all about how crazy and evil they ''used'' to be, before they got better. But as soon as the song's over, Margaret goes right back to being mad. So it's sort of a Sanity Immediately-Pre-Slippage Song.
* Music/{{Garbage}}'s "Bleed Like Me". The song alone might qualify, but the music video is about a nurse tending to the mentally ill and swiftly slipping into insanity as she does so.
** "Medication".
** "I Think I'm Paranoid" is not really an example, but could be mistaken for one, given the title and refrain. For the most part, it's a love song, although perhaps a love song from the perspective of someone who's mentally ill given lines like "prop me up with with another pill".
* Music/AvengedSevenfold's "Almost Easy". It even has the lyrics "I'm not insane" repeated several times.
* A large amount of Music/{{Tool}} songs can be interpreted this way. "Prison Sex" is perhaps the most overt (and by a large margin the {{squick}}iest) example.
** "Rosetta Stoned" is another notable example, if you're able to actually distinguish what the lyrics are in the first place.
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5z6xvhOxDg Dieter Meyers Inst.]]" and "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zq5SxNWhNQ På ditt skift]]" by Music/KaizersOrchestra. Both involve mental institutions-- the first is the character losing his mind in one, the second is about the character killing the director of the institution.
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/user/Venix946#p/u/4/ZzoSxdrhBWM Bak et halleluja]]" is another Sanity Slippage Song.
* "Headfirst for Halos" by Music/MyChemicalRomance is a [[LyricalDissonance perky]] one.
* Several songs by Music/TheUsed qualify-- "Lunacy Fringe", "Take It Away", "The Bird and the Worm", "Come Undone", "Paralyzed", etc, etc...
* "The Mind Electric" by Joe Hawley. See how the brain plays around...
* Another "whole album" case: ''Music/{{Quadrophenia}}'', by Music/TheWho. Features such songs as "Is It In My Head?" and "Doctor Jimmy."
** Not an obvious choice but a good one. The first track with vocals, "The Real Me", sets the tone: "I'm crazy Ma, help me/'I know how it feels, son/'Cause it runs in the family.'" "Helpless Dancer" extends the implication of insanity to include not only the narrator, but the entire world.
*** Music/TheWho did this long before ''Quadrophenia'' with the John-Entwistle-penned "Whiskey Man." It's all about a guy who has an imaginary friend and ends up locked in a mental hospital for it.
* Music/{{Rihanna}}'s "Disturbia" probably qualifies.
* Music/{{Megadeth}}'s "Sweating Bullets".
* "Where's Gerrold?", which is the final song from Orgy's ConceptAlbum ''Vapor Transmission.'' "Cover my eyes / I'm feeling sick / I'm getting paranoid."
* Juliet by Music/SonataArctica. The mood and sound of the song changes every thirty-ish seconds as well as there being all sorts of strange noises and utter mindfuckery going on in the background. It's subtle but it's possible to hear stuff like high pitched screeches, lalala's, weird twinkly noises and possibly a train whistle. It's not exactly a song about going insane, since it's part of a series of four songs and the character went insane in the first and pretty much went more insane in the other three. This is the last song, and fittingly the most insane. The other three songs are Caleb), The End of This Chapter and Don't Say A Word.
* Quite a bit of Music/{{Korn}}'s early production was about this, with the breaking point usually identifiable by the point where Jonathan Davis switches to a sing-song voice, and switches back to his normal when it's time to go AxCrazy. One of the interlude tracks is even named [[LampshadeHanging "Am I Going Crazy"]].
** The most epic example of this is "Daddy," off their self-titled album, where Jonathan Davis get through the song, starts getting ''really'' emotional, and then ''breaks down and sobs'' for ten minutes while the rest of the band self-consciously improvises music around him, ending only when someone walks out of the studio and slams the door.
* "Flowers on the Wall", by the Statler Brothers.
* "Lighten Up [=McGraw=]" by CrackTheSky seems to be this trope, but it's a little hard to tell whether some of the weirder lyrics are meant to represent insanity or if they're just regular old WordSaladLyrics. But considering that it has lines like "Well, I eat what I am and I'm not overdressed / I just can't understand why I'm sometimes depressed" and "I haven't giggled in thirty-five months", it probably counts anyways.
* "Leica" by [[Music/HavalinaRailCo Havalina]] could be interpreted as this in light of the final lines:
-->And nothing ever seems strange \\
when you're finally insane.\\
I could sure use a little help.
* "Insane in the Brain" by Music/CypressHill is definitely this trope; the only question is whether it's being PlayedForLaughs or played straight. Its refrain is "Insane in the membrane / Insane in the brain!"
* "Isolated" by Chiasm
-->The monsters make me hide
-->Perhaps i'll eat myself alive
-->Internally there's nothing left for me to be
** For that matter, pretty much anything by Chiasm.
* "Undone (The Sweater Song)" by Music/{{Weezer}}.
* Oddly enough, [[Music/ElvisPresley Elvis]] had one in the [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs rather]] [[DisneyAcidSequence trippy]] "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy4_FmqXlC4 Edge of Reality]]" from ''Live a Little, Love a Little''.
-->I can hear strange voices echo
-->Laughing with mockery
-->The border line of doom I'm facing
-->The edge of reality
* Music/PetShopBoys' "I Want To Wake Up". The verses cover the narrator simply having bad dreams about his [[AllLoveIsUnrequited unrequited love]], then progress to him suddenly crying whenever "Tainted Love" comes on the radio, declaring single-minded obsession for the love interest, and finally the ominous line "Play with fire, play with guns/It's easy to impress someone"[[note]] This from a time period when the attempted murder of Ronald Reagan by a crazed Jodie Foster fan was still quite fresh.[[/note]]. At the end, a breakdown is implied as he desperately shouts, [[MadnessMantra "I want to wake up, wake up, wake up with you!"]] All this to some creepy LyricalDissonance.
* "I'm So Sick" by Music/{{Flyleaf}}. This is the chorus:
-->I'm so sick, in-fected-with\\
Where I live, let me live without this\\
Empty bliss, selfishness\\
I'm so sick
* "Mad World" by Music/TearsForFears. Opening to the chorus:
-->I find it kind of funny and I find it kind of sad\\
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
** Only the Tears For Fears version though. The [[CoveredUp Gary Jules]] version is more of a Spiral Into Depression song.
* [[SarcasmMode Surprisingly enough]], Music/{{Slipknot}} has quite a few. "Eyeless" comes to mind: the first word sang (er, [[MetalScream screamed]]) in the song is "INSANE!"
* "See You All In Hell", by Music/JonathanCoulton begins with a list of things needed to film a scene for a movie, and ends with "And now my left arm is not working. I fear nothing anymore. See you all in hell." The weird part is that this is apparently made from a text message a friend of Coulton's actually received.
* Music/FrouFrou's "Psychobabble". It's about a hostage situation that may or may not exist only in the mind of one, and by the end it's hard to tell who's who, or even if there were two to begin with.
* Tourniquet, Haunted, The Other Side, Lose Control, Even In Death- Music/{{Evanescence}}
* The song "Mathilde" by Music/JacquesBrel shows the singer slowly losing his grip until he's willing to accept back a woman he knows will make him miserable.
* "[[Music/{{Supertramp}} Don't arrange to have me sent to no asylum]]. [[BlatantLies I'm just as sane as anyone]]. [[StatusQuoIsGod It's just a game I play for fun...]]"
** "Just Another Nervous Wreck" seems to play this trope [[AxCrazy much straighter]].
* Music/MidnightSyndicate's "Gates Of Delirium" tells the story of an asylum. Wanna guess how many of the songs fit this trope?
* Waffle King by Music/WeirdAlYankovic tells the story of a man that makes an usually good waffle recipe, then becomes convinced that he has become a celebrity, before going AGodAmI.
* "Seasons In The Abyss" by Music/{{Slayer}}.
* Music/ThePogues love to do this, often combining it with LyricalDissonance.
* Most [[Music/TheDoors Doors]] songs can be interpreted as Sanity Slippage Songs. It's quite explicit in "Celebration Of The Lizard King":
-->''Once I had a little game''
-->''I liked to crawl back in my brain''
-->''I think you know the game I mean''
-->''I mean the game called "go insane"''
* Music/TheCrystallineEffect's songs "Blue Sea" and (possibly) "Hypothermia".
* Music/{{Showbread}}'s "I Think I'm Going to See You". Also overlaps with LoveMakesYouCrazy.
-->There's a hole in the fabric of my sanity\\
and it's getting big enough to see through\\
and on the other side of losing my mind\\
I think I'm going to see you.
* Music/LinkinPark's songs "One Step Closer", "Papercut", and "Crawling".
* Music/ThreeDaysGrace's "Animal I Have Become".
* Music/BobDylan's "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", a satire of someone buying too much into the RedScare and going paranoid bonkers as a result. PlayedForLaughs all the way.
* Music/FosterThePeople's "Pumped Up Kicks". Once you realise the lyrics are about a boy getting ready to go on a shooting...
-->All the other kids with the pumped up kicks\\
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun\\
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks\\
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
* Music/TheLonelyIsland's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c "Like A Boss"]] sounds like a Sanity Slippage Song PlayedForLaughs. A day in the life of The Boss seems normal enough at first ("''Talk to Corporate LIKE A BOSS! Approve memos LIKE A BOSS! Lead a workshop LIKE A BOSS! Remember birthdays LIKE A BOSS!''") but then The Boss gets [[LoveMakesYouCrazy rejected by Deborah]], and things go downhill '''fast.'''
* "Pull Me Under" and "Panic Attack" by Music/DreamTheater both seem to be about this. "A Mind Beside Itself", "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence", and parts of "Octavarium" also concern various mental disorders.
* Music/TheVeronicas have done this many many times, Hook Me Up, When It All Falls Apart, Heavily Broken, Hollywood, Insomnia and How Long, Thus far.
* Music/DeltaGoodrem, Nobody Listened:
--> ''Like a train, off the rails, to you''
* Music/IFightDragons has a song called [=cRaZie$=], although the lyrics may also be interpreted as a sort of "visionaries are seen as crazy" song, depending on how you look at it.
--> "Woah-oh-oh, there's a body on the floor, and the crazies, the crazies are coming to life. Woah-oh-oh, I can't take it any more, 'cuz they're crazy, they're crazy, but maybe they're right!"
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APACHZLKjQg&feature=g-like&context=G2650038ALTu6q2gADAA "Personal Demons" by Rufus Rex,]] a side project of Music/CreatureFeature, is chock full of crazy, complete with an allusion to Radiohead's "Climbing Up the Walls" ("It's just a matter of time / Till I lose my mind / And start crawling up the walls"). Heck, the opening verse goes:
-->''Psychosis must be setting in,\\
Clouding my perception,\\
Social interaction null and void.\\
Contact with reality\\
Is something I no longer need.\\
Now I have insanity on my side!''
* Unexpect's songs from the album "In A Flesh Aquarium" and "Fables Of The Sleepless Empire" are ALL about madness and hallucinations and illusions and wonders incomprehensible. [[http://www.darklyrics.com/u/unexpect.html Just read any of these song's lyrics.]]
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99l1c1Zlmg He Used To Cut The Grass]]" from Music/FrankZappa's ''Joe's Garage''
-->Wait! I've got it!\\
I'll be sullen and withdrawn\\
I'll dwindle off into the twilight realm of my own secret thoughts\\
I'll walk through the parking lot in a semi-catatonic state\\
And dream of Guitar notes to go with the loading-zone announcements...
* "Disturbance" and "Cherry Blossom Clinic" by The Move. The former more or less describing an individual's growing psychosis as he grows older; the latter having another person describing various hallucinations he sees as he goes mad in the mental hospital.
* "Institutionalized" by Music/SuicidalTendencies subverts this trope, because while other characters in the song think the protagonist is going insane, the protagonist doesn't.
** Though the structure of the song strongly indicates that their accusations [[SelfFulfillingProphecy actually cause him to gradually go insane]].
* Many, ''many'' songs by Music/VanDerGraafGenerator and its frontman [[FaceOfTheBand Peter Hammill]] qualify as this, but the finest example is the [[EpicRocking twenty-three minute epic]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNAO7uDH0M8 "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers."]] It [[MindScrew seems]] to be about a lighthouse keeper who inadvertently allows a ship to crash, then slowly drives himself mad with guilt, grief, and loneliness. Whether he is DrivenToSuicide in the end is deliberately left ambiguous.
* Sweating Bullets by Music/{{Megadeth}}. The video further proves the fact.
* Music/VanessaAmorosi: "I Thought We'd Stay Together" discusses her HeroicRROD and shutting down creativity after a long term boyfriend left her, because of differing opinions, she then proceeds to mention how much she wants to burn her house down because he used to love her there...and how it makes her very very angry.
* "As Madness Took Me" and "Calling My Name" by Dragonland, the latter of which contains audio clips from Charles Manson.
* "Last Resort" by Papa Roach is a song about someone slowly giving into depression.
* "Spies" by Music/{{Coldplay}} is about a paranoid schizophrenic who believes spies are everywhere. [[FridgeHorror It's creepy for a Coldplay song once you know that]].
* Assemblage 23's ''Collapse'':
--> I'm on the verge of collapse\\
I'm on the brink of disaster\\
And I'm far more lost than I would like to admit\\
I'm at the end of my rope\\
I'm on the edge of a breakdown\\
And no matter how tightly I hold on, I still slip
* "Complicated Machine" by Future Perfect. "You gave a gift to me, a fragment of insanity... I want to thank you for the neurosis that plagues me".
* "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" by Music/BlueOysterCult.
** Similarly, "Veins" is about a man who has blackouts and thinks that he kills people.
* The entire album "A Shipwreck in the Sand" by Silverstein, with a little bit of unreliable narration in the first song. In the second, once the protagonist of the album finds out his wife has been cheating on him, he begins to slip. At first he merely hides that he knows, and tries to keep going with it... then he finds out it was his best friend who she was cheating on him with. Throw in a song that tells its own story about betrayal, and by the 9th song "I Am the Arsonist", he decides to burn down his house with his wife and daughter in it. He regrets it, goes into save them, his wife (rightly) accuses him of setting the house on fire and they go to court. He's let off because of a lack of evidence, but loses his daughter, and decides to leave the town, driving to a motel where he decides to kill himself. The final song is him reminiscing and realizing that he never could have truly loved her in the first place.
* "Madman Across the Water" by Music/EltonJohn.
--> It's quite peculiar in a funny sort of way
--> They think it's very funny everything I say
--> Get a load of him, he's so insane
* "Metal Health" by Music/QuietRiot (you may know it as [[RefrainFromAssuming "Bang Your Head"]]) is an [[InvertedTrope inversion]]. It's about curing your insanity with ThePowerOfRock.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGOZvbDcV7k Mental Warp]] by Music/InsaneClownPosse. It is a very disturbing and surreal song which seems to be told from the point of view of a person who has slipped into a deep psychosis and just descends further and further into incoherence.
--> '''Violent J:''' "Staring at the ceiling/The roof has a face/It's telling me I don't belong with the human race/He's asking me to join him in eternal sleep/I give him my soul/My body I can keep."
* Music/AxeMurderBoyz' "God Only Knows", about a man who murders a woman, keeps her corpse in his home, [[ILoveTheDead has sex with her corpse]] and [[IAmAHumanitarian consumes her heart]].
* Men At Work's ''"Who Can It Be Now?"'' could be interpreted as this.
** There are elements of this in "Overkill" as well.
* {{Music/Kasabian}}'s ''Butcher Blues''.
* Music/MarinaDiamandis' "The Family Jewels" album contains a lot of these.
** "Mowgli's Road" is perhaps the most notorious, along with "Oh No!" and "Guilty".
* The very track "Electra Heart" itself is an entire Sanity Slippage song, which makes sense when you consider how it's the song that leads up to the moment when Electra breaks down and proceeds to commit suicide.
* Music/{{Sodom}}'s "Persecution Mania", which is about a Vietnam vet suffering from PTSD.
* "Terminal Eyes" by Music/AlStewart.
* Music/{{Mothy}} gives us "And Then the Girl Went Mad" from the ''Music/EvilliousChronicles'', describing how the speaker slowly lost all emotions but wrath while abandoned in a hut in the woods, beginning to hear voices and feel smothered by the darkness. "Evil Food Eater Conchita" similarly has an opsomaniac eat more and more disgusting foods until finally, after [[IAmAHumanitarian eating everyone else in her mansion]] she [[AutoCannibalism eats herself]].
* "Meltdown!" by Music/TheAquabats.
* "Hey There, Cthulhu" by Eben Brooks interweaves descriptions the apparent singer's sanity slippage with the praise for the eponymous [[EldritchAbomination Great Old One]].
* Music/{{Ratt}}'s "I'm Insane."
* Creator/AnnaRussell traces the "gradual mental breakdown of the popular singer" through elated, depressive and schizophrenic stages, until sanity ultimately bottoms out in a song called "Mad."
* ''Gunpowder Tim vs the Moon Kaiser'' by Music/TheMechanisms contains a song entitled "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Tim Goes Crazy]]," in which Tim goes AxCrazy after [[spoiler: his best friend Bertie]] is killed during the war against the Moon Kaiser.
* In ''Crazy Man Michael'' by Fairport Convention, the protagonist's sanity slips from bad to barely functional.
* Music/{{Lifelover}} had a lot of these, although the biggest contender has to be [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUvXt_Ha0_8 Mentral central dialog]], which consist of ''nothing of the repeated phrase'' which translates to:
-->''I find no answers,''
--> - ''Are there any answers?''
--> ''I find no answers,''
--> - ''Are there any answers?''
--> ''I find no answers,''
--> - ''There is no answer!''
** For the benefit of doubt, ''all'' of ''Konkurs'' is this.
* Music/{{Skillet}}'s "Monster" is about a person struggling to control their inner demons.
* Music/MelanieMartinez has two songs with this theme in her ConceptAlbum ''Cry Baby''. "Pity Party" involves the titular Cry Baby breaking down because [[OnePersonBirthdayParty no one came to her birthday party]] and is set when she's starting to crack. "MadHatter" is about Cry Baby embracing her mental instability and slipping much further.
* ''Music/TheNeighbourhood'' has "Afraid" and "Female Robbery". The former is about being paranoid that everyone you know is lying about liking you and that you're replacable, while the latter is about a friend who has become increasingly mentally unstable.
* The 2016 album by Music/PanicAtTheDisco, titled ''Death Of A Bachelor'', has this in "Emperor's New Clothes". It is the point at which the heart-broken bachelor returns to his life of partying and quickly spirals into an unstable mental state. The music video gives a visual representation, showing the singer transforming from a handsome young man into a demonic creature throughout the song.
* Music/{{Starset}} has "My Demons", which is about a man dealing with his inner problems.
* Both "Control" and "Gasoline" by Music/{{Halsey}}. The former is about someone who is hearing voices and who feels she's losing control, while latter is about someone who is spiraling downwards and who has several unhealthy habits.
* Covered in the album ''Music/PacManFever'' with both "Pac-Man Fever" and "Goin' Berzerk".
-->''I think I'm goin' berzerk. I think I'm losing my mind.\\
I'm getting lost in the shuffle. It happens every time.''
* The favorite topic of Music/{{Suffocation}}, to the point that it's easier to list their songs that ''don't'' involve the protagonist mentally disintegrating than it is the ones that do. Given [[DeathMetal their genre]], said meltdowns frequently end in violence.
* ''Soul Inside'' by Music/SoftCell:
-->And the beat of my heart
-->Marks the passing of time
-->And I just wanna scream to the sky
-->There are times when my mind is an explosion of feelings
-->I'm trying to hold on to the soul inside
* Music/EricBogle starts to wonder if he is going insane in "Them Old Song Writin' Blues":
-->I think my mind's beginnin' to go\\
I just found myself wishin' I was Barry Manilow
* Music/BlindGuardian has a few, mostly based on specific source material, but "Another Stranger Me" (notable for the TomatoInTheMirror music video) and "The Black Chamber" both stand out.
* ''Music/{{Pink}}'' has more the one of these, but the most obvious example is Don't Let Me Get Me. P!nk actually didn't perform this song for several years, saying she has come to hate it as it saddens her to revisit the way she used to feel while singing this song.
* ''The Silent'' by {{Music/Tragic Tantrum}} As the song plays you hear the singer getting ever more frantic as those silent little demons and their silent little ways eat her inside out. She even outright tells us:
-->It's time my body go to bed
-->But who to tend to my dear head?
-->The night will soothe it's deadly ways
-->Into the realm of the insane
* "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" by Set It Off is TheInsomniac / Sanity Slippage Song.
-->As the sun begins to rise\\
I can barely shut my eyes\\
This crazed, delirious mess\\
[[LaughingMad Laughing at everything I see]]\\
My sanity is spent
* Destiny Potato (now known as Sordid Pink), a prog metal band from Serbia, has a song [[https://genius.com/Sordid-pink-lunatic-lyrics appropriately titled]] [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4LhDfljIYTQ "Lunatic"]] on their debut album ''Lun''.
* ''Music/{{Gorillaz}}:''
** A prime example of this is Phase 3's song "Stylo," which mostly consists of [[MeaninglessMeaningfulWords Meaningless Meaningful Words]] and the band's singer 2-D chanting the words [[MadnessMantra "Overload, overload, overload, coming up to the overload" over and over again.]] Considering that this is the song that takes place in the direct aftermath of his kidnapping by the band's bassist [[PsychopathicManchild Murdoc,]] his forced exposure to both him and [[spoiler:the [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots cybernetic replica]] of his seemingly-dead bandmate/surrogate little sister,]] and that within the song itself he's just had to witness both said [[spoiler:cybernetic replica]] ''shooting a cop off the freeway,'' [[UpToEleven and]] [[DrivesLikeCrazy Murdoc]] managing to land the both of them in a car chase with [[spoiler:Creator/BruceWillis]], having a bit of a breakdown is [[TraumaCongaLine a rather understandable reaction.]]
** Also qualifying is Phase 6's song "PAC-MAN," whose music video consists of 2-D having a minor breakdown while playing the Pac-Man game that Murdoc bought for him, imagining that he is the Pac-Man and that his friends are the ghosts, consuming them all with horrifying glee. It only ends when Noodle gets sick of it and pulls the plug on the machine, forcing 2-D to stop. The video is also rather trippy, with Noodle shifting through several different animation styles in the blink of an eye at one point and 2-D gaining rainbow pupils shaped like Pac-Man partway through.
--> ''You can call me cracked''
--> ''You can call me mad and stifled''
--> ''You can hold my hand''
--> ''Sail me into bathing light''
--> ''Everybody knows''
--> ''When I was sad, I fell for you''
--> ''Everywhere I go''
--> ''[[MadnessMantra I'm stressin' out, I'm stressin' out, I'm stressin' out, I'm stressin' out, stressin' out]]''
* Music/Apollo440's "High On Your Own Supply" is a SecondPersonNarration version of this, which uses drug metaphors.
* Many of the later albums from ''Music/TheCaretaker'', particularly the ''Everywhere At The End of Time'' series, take this to its most haunting form; Various 20's - 30's ballroom pieces are sampled with repetition, droning sounds, distortion, and ungodly noise to represent the cognitive decline of dementia, becoming an auditory representation of someone literally losing their mind.
* R.I.P.'s "[[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3VA8u8UDaCw Pyrite Girl]]" starts off as a sad, if somewhat eerie, song about an abuse victim. Then the singer gets it into her head that she can fix herself with gold...widening the cracks in her mind in the process. By the end, she's completely off her rocker.
-->''I've broken my mind''\\
''One million times''\\
''Now not one mark on me is out of line''\\
''And I am made of GOLD!''
[[/folder]]

* "Hellfire" in [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', which is when even [[KnightTemplar Frollo]] realizes he's crossing a line. He realizes he's [[SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny lusting for Esmeralda]], and he plays the NeverMyFault card and says he's willing to burn down Paris to find Esmeralda. The fact he tries to embrace a ghost of her doesn't help.

* According to one of her routines, MariaBamford, on advice from her therapist, has come up with an "anxiety song" that she sings to reassure herself and fight off all her various neuroses.

* "Basket Case" by Music/GreenDay.

* ''Film/MuppetTreasureIsland'' has a big set piece number called "Cabin Fever", when the ship is becalmed and the crew [[{{Understatement}} go a BIT bonkers]]. [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment As soon as the song ends, however, everything goes back to normal]], and the only person who seems to remember the number is [[TheDitz Clueless Morgan]].

Turn up the sound and hear the white noise\