# Songs that sound happy but are actually dark **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 10, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775 "2009-12-10T21:21:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Sealemon2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@Sealemon2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/141 "2009-12-18T09:36:36Z")
Oh, yeah, and Queen’s Radio Ga Ga and Don’t Try Suicide are both very catchy. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/142 "2009-12-18T10:56:37Z")
Willie Nelson’s [Funny How Time Slips Away](http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/w/willie_nelson/funny_how_time_slips_away.html) is a very clever song indeed, about a man who runs into his ex by chance. Willie sings the whole thing in the same blithe twang, but the title line is given a slightly different twist at the end of each verse - the first verse is polite small talk, the second is a pointed jab and the third is an thinly-veiled threat. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/143 "2009-12-18T13:38:28Z")
> [@Sealemon2.0](#): > > Kinda surprised no one’s mentioned Creedence Clearwater’s **Bad Moon Rising** Someone [did.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11873957&postcount=12) ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/144 "2009-12-18T14:42:17Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > I dunno. I’m going to disqualify this on a couple of grounds. First of all, Richard Thompson could sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and it would sound dark. And second, the song is actually \* less \* dark than the title would imply, given that the Wall of Death is some kind of carnival ride. So is _Helter Skelter_. Ask Sharon Tate how that one turned out for her. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/145 "2009-12-18T19:43:31Z")
Neil Sedaka’s original 1962 recording of [Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbad22CKlB4) Bouncy, upbeat melody paired with lyrics about the singer’s girlfriend dumping him. Not to be confused with his [1975 remake,](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hh--22Eu_M&feature=related) which he turned into a blues-ey piano ballad. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/146 "2009-12-18T20:19:24Z")
[Western Union](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJMwxucTJyo), by the Five Americans. Nice catchy tune with good rhythm and harmony, but the song is all about how his girl Dear Johnned him by telegram. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/147 "2009-12-19T01:22:34Z")
“My Little Town” by Simon and Garfunkel sounds like a sentimental, “Penny Lane”-type song. Simon wrote it for Garfunkel, wanting something nasty to contrast the nice stuff he’d been singing (It appeared on both their solo albums in 1975). The lyrics, which I waited over 30 years to track down and read, contrast vividly with the sentimental music, hinting at fraudulent values, stifled intellect and environmental degradation. Wow, maybe I should give “Penny Lane” a new listen… ---
**Author:** ![davidw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@davidw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidw)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/148 "2009-12-20T02:24:14Z")
“Hey Ya” by Outkast ---
**Author:** ![songlover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@songlover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/songlover)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/149 "2014-06-16T19:21:02Z")
> [@Strainger](#): > > Bobby Darin’s “Artificial Flowers” is probably the most depressing upbeat song I’ve ever heard. Or vice versa. It’s about an orphan girl who earns what money she can by making artificial flowers and selling them to rich people, until she dies from the cold weather in her tenement. It’s a bouncy tune. Artificial Flowers is from an 1960 broadway show called “Tenderloin”, and is a huge comedy number. If you listen to it as a tragic song then it’s really a piece of c\*\*p, it is the triteness of the lyrics that make it so funny, and of course the way it is performed. Personally, I don’t think Bobby Darin got it, but Beautiful South definitely did. ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/150 "2014-06-16T20:00:47Z")
The Postal Service’s first (and probably only) akbum included the upbeat and poppy song “we will become silhouettes”… about dying horribly in the aftermath of a nuclear war. _Because the air outside will make our cells Divide at an alarming rate until our shells Simply cannot hold all our insides in And that’s when we’ll explode_ ---
**Author:** ![67java89](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/aeb1de/32.png) [@67java89](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/67java89)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/151 "2014-06-16T20:46:26Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > Come to think of it, Tom Jones’s **She’s a Lady** qualifies. It is so catchy and fun, but the lyrics are largely repulsive misogyny. I just read the lyrics and now I feel ill ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/152 "2014-06-16T20:56:07Z")
A happy little song about serial killing by Shel Silverstein [Now with Muppets](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ-EJNz2AoE) Imagine You Were Mine-- [Mitch Benn](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5uP7YeKduQ) ---
**Author:** ![cococ173](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3ab097/32.png) [@cococ173](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cococ173)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/153 "2014-06-16T21:06:37Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > **“A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys > Painted wings and giant strings make way for other toys”** > > My son is three years old … these lines are hitting me harder than they should ☹ Reading this lyric still brings tears. My son is 28. Waiting for a grand child so Puff can come back! ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/154 "2014-06-16T21:27:23Z")
[Outside of a Small Circle of Friends](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMeG6dAFqXw&feature=kp) by Phil Ochs was done to a boppy rag-time tune for the sake of irony. It’s about the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese while witnesses looked the other way ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/155 "2014-06-16T21:43:17Z")
Oingo Boingo made something of a specialty of up-tempo, ska-influenced songs with sinister lyrics; the first one that comes to mind is “Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me”, in which Danny Elfman recites a litany of horrifying everyday tragedies he’s heard about (a family gets pistol-whipped during a home invasion, teenage suicide) while the band sings the sunny chorus “Why should I care?” ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/156 "2014-06-16T22:43:43Z")
The Coventry Carol – a hauntingly beautiful Christmas song, actually about the Slaughter of the Innocents. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/157 "2014-06-16T23:09:49Z")
One of the best examples of this is Green Day’s “Time of Your Life”. “More Than Words” by Extreme is NOT a love song either, and definitely not suitable for weddings. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/158 "2014-06-16T23:21:25Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > One of the best examples of this is Green Day’s “Time of Your Life”. You mean the song that’s actually called, [Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Riddance_%28Time_of_Your_Life%29)? If only there was some sort of a clue that it wasn’t completely positive … 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/159 "2014-06-16T23:31:27Z")
**Jump** by Van Halen was really about a real-life suicide jumper that David Lee Roth saw on the news. Bystanders were trying to talk him down so Roth used that as the inspiration to write a song saying that he probably should jump. “You might as well jump…Go ahead and jump.” David Lee Roth in Rock Video Magazine, July 1984 : “Jump” is a song that we wrote for several different reasons, primarily because it is leap year and secondly, because I was watching television one night and it was the five o’clock news and there was a fellow standing on top of the Arco Towers in Los Angeles and he was about to check out early, he was going to do the 33 stories drop - and there was a whole crowd of people in the parking lot downstairs yelling “Don’t jump, don’t jump” and I thought to myself, “Jump.” So, I wrote it down and ultimately it made in onto the record, although in a much more positive vein. > **[Van Halen Links.com - Interviews - David Lee Roth - July 1984 ::. Rock Video...](http://www.vhlinks.com/pages/interviews/dlr/rv0784.php)** > > A comprehensive list of links for Van Halen oriented web sites on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775/160 "2014-06-17T00:25:29Z")
[Country Death Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0CazRHB0so) by the Violent Femmes. Fairly upbeat song about a guy who kills his daughter. Told from the father’s perspective. The song ends with him feeling so much guilt, he decides to hang himself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-happy-but-are-actually-dark/520775.md?page=9)