I Go Crazy (Paul Davis song)


"I Go Crazy" is a song written, composed, and recorded by American singer-songwriter Paul Davis. It was the first single he released from his 1977 album Singer of Songs: Teller of Tales, and his second-highest peaking pop hit, peaking at #7 on the Billboard chart in 1978. The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart on 27 August 1977 and began slowly climbing, peaking in March and April 1978, before dropping off the chart the week after 27 May 1978. Overall, it spent 40 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, setting what was then the record for the longest run on that chart, of consecutive weeks or not.
During the March 4, 1978 American Top 40 show, Casey Kasem said that Davis begged his studio to have the song presented to Lou Rawls, whom he thought would make it a huge success. But when the studio saw how much faith he had in the chances of the song's success, it instead decided to release a lightly edited version of Davis's own studio demo version.

Content

The lyrics are narrated from the point of view of a man who is reuniting with a former girlfriend; both have moved on from each other. However, the man admits that looking his old girlfriend in the eye reawakens his old feelings towards her and makes him "go crazy." To his credit, he does not act on those old feelings, though he does realize that he is not fully over his old girlfriend.

Covers

The song has been covered by several artists, including these four whose versions were all released as singles:

Paul Davis

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Lee Greenwood

Will Downing

Barry Manilow

DHT featuring Edmée