Randy Newman has made a career of catchy tunes with underlying lyrics, the best example I can think of is “Let’s Drop the Big One” Randy Newman - Political Science (Let's Drop the Big One Now) - YouTube
No one likes us
I don’t know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around
Even our old friends put us down
Let’s drop the big one
And see what happens
There are several upbeat satirical songs about atomic weapons. The OP said these were excluded, but since people have already posted some, here are some more:
A Bomb Bop by Mike Fern
Watch World War 3 on Pay TV by Richard M. Sherman (as the Crown City Four)
Crawl Out Through the Fallout by Sheldon Allman
Radioactive Mama, also by Sheldon Allman
Atomic Cocktail by Slim Gaillard
This was bad in the '60’s.
IMO the Fairytale of New York does sound cheerful except for the beginning and the low note of the word “day”. According to Google it is in D Major, and the music from the verses definitely sounds peppy, like a celtic dance.
And I grew up chortling to The Merry Minuet (I heard it off a live Kingston Trio LP).
Written in the late forties, but unfortunately still relevant.
It’s literally a minuet in 3/4 time, and ends with…
…But we can be tranquil
and thankful and proud
For man’s been endowed
with a mushroom-shaped cloud
They’re rioting in Africa,
There’s strife in Iran.
What nature doesn’t do to us…
Will be done by our fellow man.
If you just sing the melody, these Pogue songs don’t sound sad to me, but a chacun son gout.
Years and years ago I wrote a little mashup of “Carol of the Bells” and “Danse Macabre” which fit together quite well. No idea where I’ve put it though.
Which reminds me of Cee Lo Green’s “Forget You” (in its slightly cleaner incarnation). Very upbeat, and also very angry.
Then I nominate “Sound The Pibroch”. The gentle strumming sounds like a pleasant lullably, but it’s a traditional Scottish song about a Jacobite uprising in which the Jacobites - the heros of the song - were slaughtered:
On dark Culloden’s field of gore
Hark they shout Claymore, Claymore
They bravely fight what can they more
Than die for Royal Charlie
…
Now on the barren heath they lie
Their Funeral Dirge the eagle’s cry
Mountain breezes o’er them sigh
Wha’ fought and died for Charlie
…
No more we’ll see such deeds again
Deserted is each Highland glen
And lonely cairns are o’er the men
Wha’ fought and died for Charlie
actual song, by The Corries
A brief explanation, spotted elsewhere on the internet:
Pedantic nitpickery; the name of the song is Political Science. The song was on the album Sail Away, whose titular track doesn’t sound particularly upbeat and so is not a candidate for this thread, but does contain some of Randy’s most chilling lyrics as a slavetaker tries to tempt Africans with the promise of the New World. E.g.:
CSNY’s Ohio was considered a dance song.
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
And you find the music “cheerful-sounding,” per the OP? :dubious:
Superstar from Jesus Christ Superstar has a beat you can dance to, but the lyrics are extremely dark.
The Fireballs hit version of Bottle of Wine has very upbeat music, but Tom Paxton’s song is about a die hard drunk, unable to get sober, singing for “nickels and dimes” who can’t get enough to buy a bottle of wine.
In what alternate universe was it ‘considered a dance song’??? Genuinely curious.
And what kind of interpretive dance masters managed to find a good beat to ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’??? Some people flailing away on a stage during a production have a hard enough time ‘dancing’ to that.
The Postal Service’s “We Will Become Silhouettes.”
A nice song about a post-nuclear attack.
The shortie Death and Grief and Sorrow and Murder by Steve Martin should qualify.
‘Ach du lieber Augustin’ is a lively upbeat sounding song about a guy whereby everything in his life seems to be turning to shit.
The original version of the Mothers of Invention’s “Trouble Every Day” was pretty peppy, although it became more bluesy on the Roxy and Elsewhere" version.
There is a straight-up apocalypse going on in the Pierces’s To the Grave.
“I knew it was coming/Now it’s running faster than me/Fire in the sky.”
And yet it is such a great dance tune, perfect for a little wake-up-and-smell-your-mortality break during a work day.
Spot on. No more rah rah than Fortunate Son.