In case you haven’t already heard, Gary Jules and musical colleague Michael Andrews succeeded in keeping The Darkness, Cliff Richard, Ozzy & Kelly and, inspiringly, the Pop Idols off the UK Christmas number one slot with a piano and vocals version of Tears For Fears’ ‘Mad World’.
You may also care to note that it was recorded in under an hour in 2001 by Andrews, who was looking for the perfect song with which to score the final sequence of the cult time travel flick, Donnie Darko. Andrews called upon Gary Jules, a long-time friend whose solo work he had produced, to demo vocals for the newly-distilled ‘Mad World’ – a song the pair had previously “messed around with in jam sessions”.
Pretty unlikely then, that over two years later, the track would prove to be the indie battering ram that knocked the cheese out of 2003’s crop of Christmas singles.
“I heard people talking about it in the subway,” says LA singer songwriter Gary Jules, with a smile. “I was coming home from a show one night in The Borderline in London so rather than spend money on having a car sent, my manager and I jumped on the tube. We were sitting at the end of the car, and there were these four drunk, young girls at the other end just babbling about the song. It was bizarre.”
Just how ‘Mad World’ went from such humble beginnings to the lofty heights of Number One is a phenomenon Jules is still attempting to comprehend.
“Mike (Andrews) released the score on a really cool indie label (Everloving Records). It was imported over here and I was selling it over the Internet and at my shows, but somehow copies got everywhere. Obviously it was nothing like it is right now, but it had already started to spread by itself.
“We were getting things from Turkey, from Israel, Ireland, Australia – all of these crazy places. We even got a call from this radio station that said ‘You are our third most requested song’, and this was last year (2002)! It was totally overwhelming. Then all of a sudden, it really took fire somewhere around this part of the world in the last couple of months. It’s the coolest thing.”
Such is the power of a good song. Barely reminiscent of the original, its simple, dislocated chords provide the perfect background for the song’s super-fragile melody and beautiful, if unsettling, lyrics.
“In the States, if you’re part of the singer songwriter scene, you drive around and work, you write songs that are real songs, you don’t try to write songs for the radio, and you go out with your band and you perform them and people buy them and you make a living,” Jules says.
“It’s like the real working man’s music scene. To be in that and not be recognised in a major way in the States, but then to be picked up in the UK and Ireland, from that group, it’s the best thing that can happen to you. It’s the best indie press you can possibly get. There’s no way in the world to be cooler.”

Gary Jules plays Whelan’s on February 15