Falling to Pieces

"Falling to Pieces"
Single by Faith No More
from the album The Real Thing
Released	July 2, 1990
Format	CD single, Cassette, Vinyl
Recorded	December 1988 Studio D in Sausalito, California
Genre	Funk metal, rap metal
Length	5:15
Label	Slash
Writer(s)	Music: Billy Gould Roddy Bottum "Big" Jim Martin Lyrics: Mike Patton
Producer(s)	Matt Wallace
Faith No More singles chronology
"Epic" (1990) "Falling to Pieces" (1990) "Midlife Crisis" (1992)
The Real Thing track listing "From out of Nowhere" "Epic" "Falling to Pieces" "Surprise! You're Dead!" "Zombie Eaters" "The Real Thing" "Underwater Love" "The Morning After" "Woodpecker from Mars" "War Pigs" "Edge of the World"

"Falling to Pieces" is the third single on Faith No More's first studio album with Mike Patton on vocals, The Real Thing.

It is one of their best known hits, peaking at # 92 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #40 on the Mainstream Rock charts. Despite its success and unlike other of the band's hits, the song did not go on to be a live staple, appearing very rarely in concerts after their appearance at the 1993 Phoenix Festival,^[1] where Billy Gould announced "this is the last time we'll ever play this song again" right before the song.^[2] During Second Coming Tour the band picked up the song again and performed it at least once, at a concert in Rio de Janeiro in 2009. The song was performed at the Open'er Festival in 2014 for the first time since 2009.

Track lists

Promo

1. "Falling to Pieces" (Remix) – 4:19
2. "Falling to Pieces" (Video Version) – 4:32
3. "Falling to Pieces" (Album Version) – 5:12

Disc One

1. "Falling to Pieces" - 3:39
2. "We Care a Lot" (Live at Brixton) - 3:59
3. "Underwater Love" (Live at Brixton) - 3:32
4. "From Out of Nowhere" (Live at Brixton) - 3:47

Disc Two

1. "Falling to Pieces (Re-Mix)"
2. "Zombie Eaters"
3. "The Real Thing" (‡ Live)

‡Live at the Wireless July 30, 1990 also features ad-lib from Public Enemy's "911 Is a Joke"

The Brixton Academy live tracks are different mixes to those found on the LP of the concert, most notably including the line "About the smack and crack and whack that hits the streets" on "We Care a Lot", which is mostly muted on the LP mix.^[3]

Music video

The bass-driven song spawned a video in which lead singer Mike Patton portrays a series of odd characters, including one dressed like Alex from the Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange. The video is also notable for using a different mix of the song featuring more prominent background vocals, keyboards and guitar solo during the fade out. Two distinctly different versions of the video exist.^[4]

A screenshot from the 1990 music video.

Trivia

• The song can be heard in the 2002 film Black Hawk Down while the Rangers and Delta Force operators are preparing for their assault.
• The song was performed again for the first time in years on the Rio de Janeiro show, November 2009.
• Part of the song serves as epigraph for the 1993 novel Mala Onda, by Chilean writer Alberto Fuguet.
• The song can be heard in the 2007 film Towelhead, which was set in the year 1991.
• The song was again performed at the 2014 Open'er Festival in Poland.

Release history

Charts

References