Hysteria (Def Leppard song)

"Hysteria"
Single by Def Leppard
from the album Hysteria
Released	January 1988 (U.S.A.) November 1987 (U.K.)
Format	7" / 12" / CD / CDV
Recorded	1987
Genre	Power Ballad
Length	5:49
Label	Mercury
Writer(s)	Joe Elliott, Phil Collen, Steve Clark, Rick Savage, Robert John "Mutt" Lange
Producer	Robert John "Mutt" Lange
Def Leppard singles chronology
"Animal" (1987) "Hysteria" (1988) "Pour Some Sugar on Me" (1988)

"Hysteria" is a song by British hard rock band Def Leppard. It served as the titular third single from their 1987 multi-platinum album of the same name. "Hysteria" peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100. On VH1 Storytellers: Def Leppard, frontman Joe Elliott revealed that the song title came from drummer Rick Allen.

The mellow ballad features a clean guitar melody and heavily multi-tracked vocals in its chorus. The "extreme" nature of producer Mutt Lange's recording methods is also exampled in the chorus, where the clean guitar chords were recorded one note at a time as opposed to the traditional method of strumming them, in effect "building" a chord by recording the notes that make them up as one would build a wall by stacking bricks upon each other one-by-one as confirmed by Recording Engineer Mike Shipley in this recording forum post. An acoustic rendition of the song was performed by Elliott and guitarist Phil Collen on the Hysteria edition of VH1's Classic Albums.

Track listing

7": Bludgeon Riffola / Mercury / 870 004-7 (USA)

1. "Hysteria"
2. "Ride into the Sun"

Other Versions

• Lovedrug recorded a version of "Hysteria", along with a making-of video, for the fan-chosen covers album from the I AM LOVEDRUG campaign. The album, titled “Best of I AM LOVEDRUG” was released June 28, 2011.