"Goodbye Cruel World" is a song written by Gloria Shayne Baker and recorded by James Darren in 1961.

[1][2] The song is about a man whose heart was broken by a "mean fickle woman", and his plan to join the circus as a brokenhearted clown.

He does not mind being shot out of a cannon, and plans to tell the world that she "made a crying clown" out of him.

According to disc jockeys at the time the song was released, the calliope-like riff used in the song based on the "Entrance of the Gladiators" theme, was a synthesized recording of a woman's voice rather than a musical instrument.

[citation needed] Darren scored his first top ten hit on the U.S.