"People Are Crazy" is a song written by

Bobby Braddock Robert Valentine Braddock (born August 5, 1940) is an American country songwriter and record producer. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Braddock has contributed numerous hit songs during more ...

and Troy Jones and recorded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer

Billy Currington William Matthew Currington (born November 19, 1973) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Signed to Mercury Records Nashville in 2003, he has released seven studio albums for the label: his self-titled debut (2003), '' Doin' Someth ...

. It was released in March 2009 as the second single from Currington’s 2008 album '' Little Bit of Everything''. The song became Currington's third number one hit on the US ''

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Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart. On December 2, 2009, the song was nominated for two Grammy Awards for

Best Male Country Vocal Performance The Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance was awarded between 1965 and 2011. The award has had several minor name changes: *From 1965 to 1967 the award was known as Best Country & Western Vocal Performance - Male *In 1968 it was a ...

and

Best Country Song The Grammy Award for Best Country Song (sometimes known as the Country Songwriter's Award) has been awarded since 1965. The award is given to the songwriter(s) of the song, not to the artist, except if the artist is also the songwriter. There ha ...

. The song was also nominated for "Song of the Year" at the 2010

Academy of Country Music Awards The Academy of Country Music Awards, also known as the ACM Awards, were first held in 1966, honoring the industry's accomplishments during the previous year. It was the first country music awards program held by a major organization. The academy ...

Content

"People Are Crazy" centralizes on the male narrator and an old, divorced war veteran whom he meets in a bar in

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, Key West, Florida. In the first verse, the two of them converse, which leads to the old man saying, "God is great, beer is good / And people are crazy." They continue to converse throughout the second verse as well, with the old man hinting that he is terminally ill with a

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-related illness, before parting ways in the bridge. In the third verse, the old man dies. The narrator discovers that the old man was a millionaire famous enough to warrant a "front page

obituary An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...

" and "left his fortune to / Some guy he barely knew" (i.e., the narrator) over the objections of the old man's children. After this discovery, the narrator visits the old man's grave and declares that the old man was right. The song has a 4/4

time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value ...

and a moderate tempo, and is set in the key of

F major F major (or the key of F) is a major scale based on F, with the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative minor is D minor and its parallel minor is F minor F minor is a minor scale based on F, consis ...

, using a main chord pattern of F–C–Dm–B. Currington's vocals range from B3 to D5. According to the blog maintained by the television network CMT, Currington said of the song, "It’s one of those that lifts your spirits and make you laugh. I knew the first time I heard it, I wanted to lay it down and record it for the album."

and Troy Jones wrote the song after Jones gave Braddock the idea for the line "God is great, beer is good / And people are crazy." Jones was in

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and decided to take a drive through the country. He was trying to think of three things you can't argue with and came up with the three things. When the two were writing the song, Braddock then suggested the twist ending.

Music video

The music video was shot by the Brads, a directing duo consisting of Potsy Ponciroli and Blake McClure.

Critical reception

In his review of the album, ''

'' critic Mikael Wood said that the song was a "briskly strummed country-rock number" that "handily reduces urringtons worldview to a memorable one-liner", and added that the rest of the album "doesn't do much to complicate that philosophy". Matt Bjorke of Roughstock gave the song a positive review, saying that "It goes a long way into proving just what is great about country music: the stories and simple, effective melodies." Juli Thanki of Engine 145 gave the song a thumbs-down rating, saying that it was "feel-good like a ''

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'' story" and did not have a country music sound other than "an occasionally audible steel guitar lick."

Chart performance

End of year charts

Certifications

References

{{Billy Currington 2009 singles Country ballads 2000s ballads Billy Currington songs Songs written by Bobby Braddock Song recordings produced by Carson Chamberlain Mercury Nashville singles 2008 songs