Insomnia (Faithless song)

Did You Know?

• The music video was set on the Lefevre Walk estate in Bow, East London.
• Avicii released a remix titled "Insomnia 2.0 (Avicii Remix)" in 2015.
• After Maxi Jazz's death in December 2022, the song charted at number four on the UK Singles Downloads Chart.

Lyrics and composition

Maxi Jazz raps from the perspective of an insomniac struggling to sleep, describing tossing and turning without cease and rising like yeast. The lyrics mention taking sleepers but keeping oneself pepped, and the insomniac is depicted as destitute, finding only a dry potato in the refrigerator. Maxi Jazz wrote the lyrics in about twenty minutes after being given the song's title by Rollo Armstrong, finishing them in the studio the following evening and recording the vocal in roughly twenty-five minutes. Although not an insomniac himself, he drew on personal experience from a painful dental abscess that kept him awake at night. Lines about the light going out and writing in darkness were inspired by his home's prepayment electricity meter, which would cut off when credit ran out, forcing him to write by candlelight. Sister Bliss stated that the track's music was written in Rollo's garden shed studio; she came up with the title while unable to sleep, describing the experience of working in the studio by day and DJing at night as like permanent jetlag. The reggae-inflected bassline was influenced by Lionrock, while the decision to place the main keyboard riff near the end was borrowed from Underworld's method of building tension. Sister Bliss wrote the riff after Rollo asked for "big strings," borrowing the shift from a major to a minor chord from Donna Summer's "I Feel Love."

Release

The album version of "Insomnia" is nearly nine minutes long and contains lyrics not broadcast on the radio edit due to explicit content. For MTV, Maxi Jazz changed the opening line from "I only smoke weed when I need to" to "Deep in the bosom of the gentle night." The song begins with bells chiming, sampled from a BBC Sound Archive disc, though many club-goers know the Monster Mix or its radio edit. The Moody Mix samples Biosphere's "Novelty Waves" from 1994, and the album version on Reverence combines the Moody Mix and Monster Mix, thus including that sample. The Monster Mix appeared on Faithless's greatest hits album Forever Faithless. The original edit was created by Radio Victory's Bill Padley and was picked up by BBC Radio 1 in 1995, becoming a small UK Top 40 hit. After gaining popularity in continental Europe, Pete Tong campaigned for a re-release; Cheeky/Champion delayed it so it arrived in shops the same day as the Spice Girls' "Say You'll Be There," placing it alongside that single. The song charted at number three in the UK, two places below the Spice Girls single, and topped the UK Dance charts and the US Hot Dance Club Play chart.

Critical reception

Justin Chadwick from Albumism described the song as a "frenetic yet melodic ode to late night restlessness and sleep-deprived reveries," calling it phenomenal. Larry Flick from Billboard wrote that the single offers a fine peek into the project, with urgent dance rhythms, a complex and infectious pop melody, and vocals above typical club-record vamps. Complex noted that the song spoke to ravers who lived for the night and the drugs that kept them partying until dawn, capturing those vibes perfectly. Gerry Kiernan, in the 2010 book 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, commented that unleashed in an era of uplifting "handbag" house, the track crept with nocturnal stealth through rave culture into suburban bedrooms, describing it as a climatic, hands-in-the-air dance anthem not meant for bedtime. Tim Jeffery from Music Week's RM Dance Update rated it four out of five, noting the Rollo production hallmarks of piercing organ and synth riffs and a bouncy bassline, with a half-speed section for the rap. Ben Turner from Muzik observed that the song has soul, grace, emotion, and a distinctly dark, melancholic side, challenging happy house.

Impact and legacy

In 1998, DJ Magazine ranked "Insomnia" number fourteen in their list of "Top 100 Club Tunes." MTV Dance placed it at number twenty-two in "The 100 Biggest 90's Dance Anthems Of All Time" in November 2011. Mixmag readers voted it the fifth "Greatest Dance Record of All Time" in 2013. Complex included it in "Songs Every Dance Music Fan Should Know, Vol. 1" in 2014. Billboard ranked it number twenty in "The 100 Greatest Pop Songs of 1997" in 2017, calling it a towering house opus about late night restlessness. Mixmag featured it in "The Biggest Drops in Dance Music" in 2020, noting Maxi Jazz's spoken words about struggling to sleep and the piercing synth stabs. In March 2026, Bebe Rexha interpolated the melody in her single "New Religion," credited as a duet between Rexha and Faithless.