"The Closest Thing to Crazy" is the debut single of Georgia-born singer Katie Melua.

The song was written as part of the musical Men Who March Away, and appeared first in 1995 on Mike Batt's album Arabesque.

The single was originally due out in January 2004 but was released a month early in an attempt by Terry Wogan to make it that year's Christmas number one in the United Kingdom;[citation needed] it stalled at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart.

However, owing to the success of the album reaching number one, the song climbed back into the top 20 during January and February and resulted in Melua's first nomination for the annual Record of the Year prize on ITV1.

[1][2] The lyrics of the song take the form of a series of rhetorical questions, describing the contradictory emotions of being in love.