All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very mad world mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very mad world … mad world
Enlarging your world
Mad world
"Children waiting for the day they feel good". Those were just lyrics that caught one completely. That's what life is. Waiting for the day we feel good. Wow!
Tears for fears is the better version imo, it has a rage to it that just makes you want to scream, shout and blow stuff up.
The other versions are too somber and miss the point that it’s mad and chaotic and you have mixed feelings. Like it’s not supposed to be a sad song, it’s an angry, furious and chaotic song meant to show madness abs vibrance. It’s pure mania and pure dementia blended in a cocktail of pure wrath!
I think there's just been so much overexposure of the Gary Jules version that when some people listen to the original they can't get past the 80s synth pop sound. If you listen to the original carefully enough it actually fits the lyrics perfectly fine, people say the original sounds too happy... well it's not his voice because his voice does not sound happy, I always thought that the way curt smith sings it makes it seem like he's going Mad. But some people want to hate on the original because they think that tears for fears didn't know what they were doing with this song or something, you can like the gary jules version more but I just never understood the people who just throw the original under the bus and say that it doesn't fit the lyrics
I heard this one as a preteen and would get so pissed when people thought the Gary Jules was the original. Thank god my dad was cool and had a badass music collection.