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All posts tagged "happiest sounding sad songs"
Part Six of the “Happiest Sounding Sad Songs”
Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton
This song, off of Clapton’s Slowhand, is another song about George Harrison’s ex-wife, Pattie Boyd.
It is in some ways the depressing sequel to Derek & the Dominos’ “Layla.” After Clapton was begging on his knees for her love, she eventually divorced the Beatle and married him.
But they are sort of past the honeymoon period at this point. Eric and Pattie are now like the old couple you see in a restaurant that says no more than four words to each other during a meal. Instead they entertain themselves by watching sports highlights on the overhead TV and vicariously living through young, happy couples around them.
At this point, they’re finally together and she’s irritating him. According to Eric’s autobiography (that someone read to me since I am illiterate), the pair is getting ready to go to a party, but she is taking forever. She takes so long, in fact, that her husband has enough time to pen a goddamn set of lyrics about it. This song is notorious for being played at weddings and other romantic instances, even though it’s about how Clapton got tired of waiting for his Mrs.
So next time this song comes on and your girlfriend bats their eyes at you and asks to dance, just remind them that it is about how irritating women can be.
Part Five of the “Happiest Sounding Sad Songs”
Born in the U.S.A.: “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Glory Days,” &”Dancing in the Dark”
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A. is one of the most misinterpreted songs of all time, as many perceive the song to be a flag waving, apple-pie-eating, love-fest for America. This likely comes from the chorus, which is just the title being repeated over and over.
But for those that are able to see past the catchy riff and the seemingly patriotic album cover (denim ass in front of an American flag), it is pretty evident that the song is, in short, about the Vietnam War and why it was not good for young adults. It was sort of like their generation’s Facebook opening up to the general public (but with more napalm.)
Still, the song was able to fool many, including Ronald Reagan’s campaign staff who tried and failed to get the rights in order to play it during his re-election campaign in ’84. Oh, and the song has been used to torture both prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as well as my friends on road trips.
Glory Days
This song, though filled with pounding drums and catchy 80s guitars, tells a tale of two people who were the cool kids in high school. Like most cool kids from high school, they grew up to be pathetic people who sat around talking about when they were in their prime.
Dancing in the Dark
Dancing in the Dark is often thought to be a fun, poppy song. This probably has a lot to do with a young Courtney Cox shaking it in the music video.
I have not attempted to hide my man-love for Bruce Springsteen on this website, but even I will be the first to admit that most of his songs can be translated to “I drive my Chevy to work in the early morning where I work in coal mines or fix cars all day before coming home to dinner on the table where I say the Pledge of Allegiance with my wife and one and a half children.”
This song, however, doesn’t encapsulate the same lyrics chock full of motorcycles and romanticism like most of the others in his catalog. The song is one of despair and loneliness, but it’s still pretty hard to get that message through with such a catchy synthesizer riff and the word “dancing” in the title.
Another explanation for the song is that Springsteen’s manager demanded that he write a hit song, so the lyrics coincidentally tell the story of a man feeling pressured to top the charts (“I’m sick of sitting ‘round here trying to write this book”). “Dancing in the Dark” soon became his biggest song ever and helped sell millions of copies of Born in the U.S.A.
How very meta, Boss.
Part Four of the “Happiest Sounding Sad Songs’
Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
It is rare that a bar will kick people out at the end of the night before 1969’s anthemic “Sweet Caroline” comes on the jukebox. Each night, drunkards all over the country sing along and pump their fists to each “ba, ba, BA.” Beside alcoholics, dozens of sporting teams (including the NY Rangers, Red Sox, Penn State, and Red Wings) have played the song after home victories.
If you actually sit down and listen to the words, it lyrically alludes to some sort of seasonal fling with a woman named Caroline. That’s fine; 90% of songs are written about women. Except for the creepy undertones in this song. What creepy undertones? Well, how about that this song is about old Neil serenading JFK’s then eleven year-year old daughter. He divulged the inspiration behind the song two years ago, citing a picture of a young Caroline Kennedy. Diamond explained, “It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony.”
Ohhh. That’s not weird.
Part Three of the “Happiest Sounding Sad Songs”
Me and Mia - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
One of the most upbeat songs on the list is also one of the most depressing. This is the first track off of Ted Leo’s third album, Shake the Streets, and apparently bases its content off of eating disorders and the recovery from such diseases.
The lyrics and music video appear to make no attempts in hiding the subject matter with numerous references to food-related illnesses. If one cared to over think it, a correlation between ‘Mia’ and bulimia could even be formed. Despite the dreary topic, it is hard not to move along with the wavelike crescendos even while Leo produces lyrics like “Sick to death of my dependence / Fighting food to find transcendence.”
Part Two of “The Happiest Sounding Sad Songs”
I Don’t Want to Die (In The Hospital) – Conor Oberst
It’s nothing new that eternally despondent songwriter Conor Oberst writes cheerless tunes. Most of his songs go something like this: “Love isn’t real, you hate me and this world as we know it is screwed. Now allow me to crash things around in the background to drive my point home as to just how angry I am!”
But this one off of his debut solo album, he switches things up by writing a song about fatality, but paired with pounding piano and an all-out jam session with his Mystic Valley Band backing him.
This song would be very much more depressing if he made it with Bright Eyes, where he would likely slowly pick a guitar while slurring out the words. But because of these instrumentals, you don’t even notice that he’s complaining about how he can’t get drunk and has to watch soap operas, which I think just about anyone can sympathize with.
Today – Smashing Pumpkins
“Today” is one of the most popular songs of the 1990s, and is also responsible for one of the most recognizable riffs of the decade. The song was recorded in the early 90s as the Smashing Pumpkins were on the verge of collapse. Members in the band were beginning to develop drug problems, being pigeonholed by the media, and starting therapy. Lead singer Billy Corgan was losing “the ability to function” and contemplated ending his life.
“I was completely suicidal,” Corgan once said of the era. “I wrote that song in a cold bedroom on a day where it was like, ‘I’m either going to kill myself today, or I’m going to live because I’m sick of thinking about this.’”
Yet even with the lyrics, the song is often misinterpreted as an optimistic one, as recently evidenced from the chorus being used in a Visa commercial.
This is part one in a continuing series, entitled “The Happiest Sounding Sad Songs.”
