"Crazy for You" is a song by American recording artist
Madonna, for the 1985 film
Vision Quest. It was released on March 2, 1985 by Geffen
Records, as the first single from the soundtrack album of the
film. The song appears remixed on the 1990 greatest hits album
The Immaculate Collectionand was re-released on February
24, 1991 by Sire Records to promote the album. It was also
included on the ballads compilation
Something to Remember(1995) and the greatest hits
compilation
Celebration(2009). Producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber,
and music director Phil Ramone decided to use Madonna, after
listening to her previous recordings. They employed John Bettis
and Jon Lind to write the song. After reading the script of the
film, Bettis and Lind wrote the song about the situation where
the lead characters meet at a nightclub. Initial recording
sessions did not impress Bettis and Lind, and they felt that
"Crazy for You" would be dropped from the soundtrack. However,
a new version was recorded which impressed them.
John "Jellybean" Benitez was the producer for the song, and
it was a challenge for him, as previously he was associated
with recording dance-pop songs only. Initially Warner Bros.
Records did not want the song to be released as a single, since
they believed that "Crazy for You" would take away the
attention from Madonna's sophomore release
Like a Virgin. In the end, Peters and Guber convinced
Warner officials to green light the release of the single.
"Crazy for You" ushered a new musical direction for Madonna, as
previously she did not record any songs in the ballad genre. It
features instrumentation from snare drums, harp, bass
synthesizer and electric guitar. Lyrically the song talks about
sexual desire between two lovers and consists of innuendos. It
received positive reception from contemporary critics and
scholars, and earned a Grammy Award nomination in 1986 for Best
Female Pop Vocal Performance.
The song became Madonna's second number-one single on the
U.S. Hot 100 as well as reaching the peak position in the
charts of Australia and Canada. It also reached number-two in
the charts of Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom,
where it was released twice, once in 1985 and again in 1991.
Madonna has performed "Crazy for You" in two of her concert
tours – The Virgin Tour in 1995 and the Re-Invention World Tour
in 2004. The performances were included in the home video
release of the tours. The song has been covered by a number of
artists.
"Crazy for You" was written by John Bettis and Jon Lind. The
ballad was released as the first single from the soundtrack of
the 1985 film
Vision Quest, a coming of age drama about a wrestler
played by Matthew Modine. Producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber,
and music director Phil Ramone was aware of the then unknown
Madonna, who was just signed to Sire Records. Ramone took her
for dinner at his house in Carolwood Records, where she played
some of her music videos. Ramone and the other Warner
executives present there, were impressed by Madonna's
self-possession and fishnet-crucifix style. So they decided to
test her voice in a New York studio. Peters was impressed with
Madonna and assigned Joel Sill, an executive in charge of music
at Warner Bros. Pictures, to handle the recording of the two
songs for the film. Sill sent the script of the film to Bettis
and Lind. After going through the script, Bettis wanted to
write a song about the situation, where the main characters – a
young boy and a girl boarding at a house – dance together at a
nightclub. He elaborated,
"We were noodling around and 'Crazy for You' was something
that Jon was singing over that section of the song. It was
really descriptive of the scene in the film. [...] After that,
I was out on vacation out in the desert and [Sill] called and
said Phil Ramone was in love with the song and wanted to cut it
on Madonna. [Laughing] 'Borderline' was out at that time and I
said, 'Excuse me? This is for Madonna? Really? Can she sing a
song like this?' Jon and I were surprised at the choice of
artist at the time, if you want to know the truth."
After Sill let Bettis and Lind know that Madonna was singing
the song, some time elapsed before either of them heard
anything from Warner Bros. Records. In between, they went to
one of the recording sessions and were not impressed with the
process of recording the song. Bettis commented, "We went to
one of the sessions, and to be honest, that particular session
did not go all that well. [...] Jon and I were depressed about
the way the song had come out. We heard nothing else about it
and we were a little nervous that the song was going to be
dropped from the picture." Bettis went to England to work on
the 1985 fantasy film
Legendwith music producer Jerry Goldsmith. It was there
he received a call from Lind, who informed Bettis that a new
version of "Crazy for You" was recorded and was made ready for
a single release. An astounded Bettis went over to Lind's
house, where he warmly received the new recorded version of the
song, incorporating a different arrangement from the demo
version. The arrangement was done by composer Rob Mounsey who
rearranged the original track and added the background vocals.
Bettis showed his gratitude to Mounsey saying "We owe a big
debt of gratitude to [Mounsey]. He really made a hit record out
of [the song]." Mounsey was introduced in the project by record
producer John "Jellybean" Benitez who was producing "Crazy for
You". Benitez was previously associated with producing
dance-pop themed songs and it was the first time that he
produced a ballad. In Fred Bronson's
The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, Benitez
commented,
"The song was recorded live. It was the first time that I
produced a live session, as opposed to having synthesizers and
drum machines do everything. [...] I was tense because I had
never done a record like this. [...] Everything I did was
totally on instinct. I tried to make the song stand on its own,
but at the same time work in the two scenes in which it was
used in the movie."
Benitez also noted that "Crazy for You" was an important
recording for Madonna, as the song being a ballad, was openly
accepted at adult contemporary radios. She had already charted
with her singles "Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl", hence
Madonna wanted to prove that she can sing in a different genre
of music. However, Warner initially did not want the song to be
released as a single, since the release of
Vision Questcoincided with the release of Madonna's
second studio album
Like a Virginand releasing "Crazy for You" would have
distracted attention from the album. Warner Bros. Records chief
Mo Ostin went to Robert A. Daly, chairman of Warner, and
requested him to pull out the Madonna tracks from the
Vision Questsoundtrack. Daly summoned Peters and Guber
to his office and informed them that they had to let-go of the
Madonna tracks. Peters protested and shouted at Daly, resulting
him escaping in fright and Warner allowing "Crazy for You" to
be released as a single.
"Crazy for You" ushered in a new musical direction for
Madonna, as she had never recorded ballad songs previous to
this. The song is sophisticated compared to her previous
singles. The introduction features a melody by a woodwind
instrument and an electric guitar chord, sliding from one motif
to the other. It features beats by a snare drum on the last
beat of the bar, leading to the spacey quality of most of the
verses. Other instrumentation comes from a harp, a bass
synthesizer and a chattering single note guitar lick. The
fuller rhythm of the song does not start, until the chorus is
reached. The turn of the melody allows Madonna's voice to
stretch further on the higher notes. "Crazy for You" is set in
the time signature of common time, with a medium tempo of 104
beats per minute. It is set in the key of E major with
Madonna's voice spanning between the high note of G to the low
note of C. The song has a basic sequence of A–G
♯
–C
♯
m7–G/A – A/B as its chord progression. Unlike her previous
singles, the chord sequence does not repeat itself and the chorus
slowly unravels to the climax of the song. Lyrically, the song
talks about extreme love for one another. It contains innuendos
similar to The Crystals' 1963 song "Then He Kissed Me". According
to scholar Dave Marsh, the lyrics talk about a state of frank
sexual desire among two teenagers. He also said that the line "I'm
crazy for you; Touch me once and you'll know it's true" was not
ambiguous and it helped Madonna capitalize on such
disambiguation.
Rikky Rooksby, author of
The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, complimented
the song calling it sophisticated. Alex Henderson of Allmusic
felt that the other song on the
Vision Questsoundtrack, titled "Gambler", should have
been the more successful single. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from
Allmusic called the song as one of her biggest hits. Biographer
J. Randy Taraborrelli called the song "sassy" and commented
that the song provided proof that Madonna was vocally capable
of delivering a serious ballad. Author Andrew Morton believed
that the song cemented Madonna as a talented and serious singer
which "had been missing from her past recordings." Allen Metz
and Carol Benson, authors of
The Madonna Companion: Two Decades of Commentary, said
that the song sounded like a "remake of sweet-sixteen Connie
Francis tune, dripping with old-fashioned, hand-held romance"
especially in the line "It's so brand new; I'm really crazy for
you." Dave Marsh, author of
The heart of rock & soul: the 1001 greatest singles ever
made, felt that with the coda of the song, Madonna
transformed her record into an adult love song. William McKeen,
author of Rock and roll is here to stay: an anthology, felt
that the song "offered an aggressive sexuality for women".
Maria Raha, author of
Cinderella's big score: women of the punk and indie
underground, said that with the song, "Madonna brought a
trunk full of trite lyrics on the long-standing tradition of
pop music, love." "Crazy for You" was nominated for Best Female
Pop Vocal Performance at 1986 Grammy Awards, but lost to
Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love for You". The song was
ranked number 38 on VH1's "100 Greatest Love Songs", and during
the special it was revealed that "Crazy for You" was recorded
in one take. In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their
Top 20 Madonna singles of all-time by magazine. "Crazy for You"
was allocated the eleventh spot.
In the United States, "Crazy for You" became Madonna's
second number-one single on the Hot 100. The song debuted on
the chart at number fifty-four on the issue dated March 30,
1985. After six weeks, the song reached the top of the chart,
replacing "We Are the World" by USA for Africa, and stayed at
the position for one week. "Crazy for You" was the second
number-one song for Bettis as a songwriter, after "Top of the
World by The Carpenters (1973). With "Crazy for You", Bettis
was in doubt whether the song would reach the top, after it was
stuck at number two for three weeks, behind "We Are the World".
Both he and Lind commented, "If you gotta lose to something, it
as well be ['We Are the World']. Luckily enough, the final week
of the upsurge of the record, we topped 'We Are the World',
which lets you know how hot the song and how hot the artist
was." "Crazy for You" was certified gold by the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) on July 16, 1985, for
shipment of one million copies of the single across United
States – the requirement for a gold single prior to 1989. The
song reached number two on the Adult Contemporary Singles and
eighty on the Hot Black Singles chart. In Canada, the song
debuted at number seventy on the
RPMissue dated March 16, 1985. On its eleventh week on
the chart, the song reached the top position. It was present on
the chart for twenty-five weeks and ranked seventh on the
RPMYear-end chart for 1985.
The song reached number one in Australia and displaced
another Madonna release, "Angel"/"Into the Groove", from the
top spot on the Australian Kent Music Report chart, making
Madonna one of only a handful of acts who have ever replaced
themselves at the No.1 spot on the Australian singles chart.
After the song was released in the United Kingdom on June 8,
1985, it debuted and peaked at two. In February 1991, the song
was re-released and again reached a peak of two. "Crazy for
You" was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry
(BPI) for shipment of 400,000 copies across United Kingdom.
Such was Madonna's popularity that when
Vision Questwas released in home video, it was re-named
as
Crazy for You, to cash in on her success. "Crazy for
You" was also a number-two hit in Ireland and New Zealand. The
song reached the top-twenty in Belgium, Europe, Italy, Japan,
Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland and top forty of Austria,
France and Germany.
Madonna first performed "Crazy For You" on her 1985 The
Virgin Tour. She wore a black top and long black skirt with her
hair in knots and a crucifix attached in the back. After an
energetic performance of "Over and Over", Madonna sat down on
the steps and sang "Crazy for You". Paul Grein, music editor of
Billboard, commented that "She was at her best on 'Crazy
for You', making good use of a deeper, huskier vocal quality
that mirror's the song's deeper lyrical approach. The
performance was included in the VHS release
Live – The Virgin Tourrecorded in Detroit, Michigan. In
the Re-Invention World Tour of 2004, Madonna performed the song
in the last segment of the show. She wore a Scottish kilt and a
t-shirt which had different captions in different venues;
usually it had the caption "Kabbalists Do It Better", however
she also had "Brits Do It Better" and "Irish Do It Better" on
the British and Irish stops of the tour, respectively. As
Madonna finished singing "Papa Don't Preach", she went to the
second stage and announced: "This next song I dedicate to all
my fans who has been with me for all the twenty years," and
started to sing the song. At the end of the performance, she
threw her t-shirt to the audience. The performance was excluded
from the album of the documentary on the tour titled
I'm Going to Tell You a Secret, which was released in
2005.
Several Filipino acts have recorded remakes of "Crazy for
You" including, Sponge Cola in 2004, Michael Cruz in 2005 and
MYMP on their album
New Horizon(2006). In 2007, Groove Armada recorded a
cover with Alan Donohoe of art rock band The Rakes on vocals
for the compilation
Radio 1 Established in 1967. New Found Glory recorded a
punk pop cover of the song with Max Bemis for their 2007 album
From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II. A cover of the
song by Lion of Panjshir was included on the 2007 Madonna
tribute compilation
Through the Wilderness. Melissa Totten did a Hi-NRG
cover for her 2008 dance album,
Forever Madonna. An instrumental version was played in
the
Full Houseepisode
13 Candleswhen Kimmy dares DJ to kiss Kevin at her
party. It was also featured in the 2004 film
13 Going on 30, starring Jennifer Garner. Chris Griffin
performed the song during the "Long John Peter" episode of
Family Guy.