Lean Years, Come and See (a sweet ballad):
Chip Taylor & The New Ukranians (almost a lullaby):
This is something I noticed a while back. Ninety percent of all depressing songs have upbeat melodies.
My personal pick for mismatched lyrics and the melody is “Let it Go.” from Frozen. Here’s a woman who’s talking about being a supervillian and the melody sounds like Mary Poppins trying to cheer some kids up.
Ooo, Ooo - poppy, happy upbeat tune? Sweet, smooth sounds? Heartbreakingly dark, depressing lyric? Band of Gold by Freda Payne:
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Why don’t they let me go home? This iiiis the worst trip I’ve ever been on…
There’s a whole bunch of YouTube videos where people change the key of the song, which generally has the effect of changing its apparent mood, too. Consider Take Me Home, Country Roads (in minor key):
Another song I thought of with mismatched lyrics/composition is Discovering Japan by Graham Parker:
Macy Gray. The Letter. It’s a suicide note.
Bruce Hornsby & The Range - The Valley Road
A happy, catchy little song about a rich girl getting pregnant by some poor country guy who happens to work for the girl’s father. The father doesn’t want his daughter marrying some poor worker, so he sends the guy packing and the girl is sent away to either have an abortion or to have the child and put it up for adoption. The phrase “gone to her sister’s” can be interpreted either way, though it usually meant adoption and visiting the sister was a cover story for why the girl had to be away for so long.
The video shows people smiling and walking happily and completely ignores the actual subject of the song.
Really odd - today, for the first time in decades, I started singing to myself “oh death, and grief, and murder, and sorrow”, and then this thread pops up.
Huh.
(It was a line from Steve Martin’s Let’s Get Small album - he was riffing on how difficult it is to come up with something depressing while playing the banjo.
Not a bad effort.)
Henry Rollins’ “Drive By Shooting” is upbeat, with perky backing vocals.
This is the way
We get our thrills
We get in our car
And kill, kill, kill!
(backing vocals) DRIVE BY- SHOOTING!
Speaking of kill kill kill, Dead Kennedy’s “Kill the Poor” makes you wanna get up and dance sorta Frankie and Annette style or something, never mind the lyrics about:
Efficiency and progress is ours once more
Now that we have the Neutron bomb
It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Who here remembers Bye Bye Love as performed by Simon and Garfunkel?
Sad song, catchy up-beat music and tempo.
Just listen how the live audience gets all into it everywhere they perform this!
You can hear Paul McCartney stifle a laugh while singing (a) something that sounds bouncy and kid-friendly if you don’t speak English, but is (b) about people dying as a result of blows to the head from Maxwell’s silver hammer.
Are we thinking about the same song? Because she’s not talking about “being a supervillain” at all. She’s admittedly not fully in control of the powers she’s been desperately suppressing since early childhood but she’s just asking to be left alone, not to rule with an icy fist (which, as a superpowered Queen, she could already do).
“Veronica” by Elvis Costello (co-written by Paul McCartney) is a bouncy tune. But the lyrics are about a woman losing her mind to Alzheimer’s disease - based on Costello’s experiences with his grandmother. Bittersweet at best.
As an aside, I really like the part where she’s contemplating breaking free and when she finally decides to do so, I was anticipating fake difficulty that writers seem to throw in every superpowered person’s way, but that didn’t happen. I think she’s tied along with Dr Manhattan for not treating superpowered individuals artificially equally.
Yes! Reeling In the Years is one example.
Warren Zevon’s, “Excitable Boy,” is the poster child for this kind of thing. Jaunty piano, girl-group backup singers, fun little sax solos…about a serial killer/rapist.
My favorite hippie folk-song peace and love lyrics:
Maybe it’s not too late
To learn how to love and forget about hate
of course, Ozzy’s (and Randy’s) delivery isn’t very hippie folk-song.
Outside of a Small Circle of Friends - Phil Ochs.
In the style of early jazz dance music. A song about the murder of Kitty Genovese and the bystander effect.
NM; ninjad.
I remember the Heart song “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You” sounding like a romantic ballad until you realize that the song is about a married woman hooking up with strangers trying to get pregnant.