Eric Church starts off “Crazyland,” according to Genius, by welcoming an unknown person to a bar filled with lovelorn folks. The church assumes the role of the group’s ringleader, “The Mad Hatter.” Of course, this references the eccentric Hatter in the Lewis Carroll novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The rest of the first verse becomes apparent that the bar Church sings about is metaphorical. He croons about the personification of emotions: Sad, Regret, Fool, Lost, All My Fault, and Blues. By the chorus, “Crazyland” isn’t a place, but a brokenhearted state of being, as represented by those feelings. Stereogum called the tune a “classically heartbroken ballad, with Church envisioning a whole Wonderland full of personified regrets.”
The chorus is significant for Church because it came to him in a dream. “I woke up… and I wrote it down, and then I ended up writing the rest of the song to the chorus,” Church said on The Bobby Bones Show. “I guess when you get to a creative point, you get in the groove like that.”
Although the song is about heartbreak, it seems like the song got Church’s creative juices flowing and gave him a major country hit.
