Hysteria

Album: Hysteria (1987)
Charted: 26 10
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "The song really is about finding spiritual enlightenment," said Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen in his Songfacts interview. "Not many people know that because it sounds like just getting hysterical, but it's actually about that. It's about finding this deeper thing, whether you believe it or not."
  • Def Leppard bass player Rick Savage came up with a guitar part for this song, and the song came together when he played if for Collen, who told us: "We were in Dublin and Rick Savage started playing this tune, so I immediately started singing, 'Out of touch, out of reach.' That was literally the first thing that came out of my mouth. He said that was cool and he goes, [singing] 'I got to know tonight,' this whole other section. We glued it together and we got very excited and we actually went around and played it for our friends who were clothes designers in Dublin. We sat down and were playing acoustic guitar, singing over the demo, and we thought that was going to be the chorus. And [producer] Mutt Lange said, 'Okay, that's a great verse, a great bridge. Now we need the chorus.' Uh, okay. [Laughs] So we sat down and we kind of just goofed around. Steve [Clark] had this idea and Joe came and sang this thing and before you knew it, the song was pretty much done."
  • With Mutt Lange producing, Def Leppard layered a bunch of guitars on this song, which made it impossible to replicate live. In an interview with Kaos2000 magazine, lead singer Joe Elliott explained: "The song 'Hysteria' has 11 guitar parts. What we did is made a hybrid of them into two - the ones that people could really hear and the ones that aren't that important to hear live."

Comments: 1

  • Steve from Torrance, CaIn spite of what it says above, from the first time I heard it, I was sure the main guitar line that opens this song was "borrowed" from Pink Floyd's "Goodbye Blue Sky". Recorded in 1979, David Gilmour plays it on acoustic guitar and slower, while Def Leppard plays it on electric guitar and slightly speeds up the tempo.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Little Big Town

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."

Millie Jackson

Millie JacksonSongwriter Interviews

Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17Songwriter Interviews

Martyn talks about producing Tina Turner, some Heaven 17 hits, and his work with the British Electric Foundation.

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In Songs

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In SongsSong Writing

Songs where something goes horribly wrong (literally or metaphorically), and help is needed right away.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.