I Drive Myself Crazy

Album: 'N Sync (1997)
Charted: 67
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Songfacts®:

  • In this song from the group's first album, 'N Sync sing from the perspective of a guy who cut his girl loose and now regrets hit. She's all he can think about, and he drives himself crazy over it.
  • This was the last single from the 'N Sync album, released almost two years after the album came out. By this time, the group was pretty popular, but nothing compared to what they would become with the release of their blockbuster No Strings Attached in 2000.
  • The song was written by the team of Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley along with a third songwriter, Allan Rich. "Allan is a strict lyricist so he really wrote most of the lyrics to that song with us all chipping in our ideas," Shipley told Songfacts. "It wasn't meant to be goofy at all, it was meant just the way people feel: 'I drive myself crazy thinking about you and I want to know what's going on.'"
  • A few different artists were interested in recording this song, but the songwriters went with 'N Sync even though they were unknown. "I just heard their voices and I said, 'Let's give it to them,'" Shipley said.
  • It's usually metal bands that set their videos in insane asylums, but 'N Sync went with it for this one, showing the group locked up in the loony bin because they have literally driven themselves crazy. It was directed by Tim Story, who went on to direct the movies Barbershop, Fantastic Four and Ride Along. At the time, boy bands were big on MTV (especially on the show Total Request Live), so it was guaranteed to get lots of play on the network.

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