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.”