I was just listening to Elvis’ (Marie’s The Name) His Latest Flame. Very upbeat and bouncy music. Downer lyrics. I think Motown probably had a few of these. Tears Of A Clown, Smokey and the Miracles, for example.
What about Happy Together by the Turtles, not sure but there seems to be a lot of minor chords in that song.
ETA: Just checked - not as many as I thought, just 2, still…
Fats Domino was a master of sad lyrics set to bouncy, upbeat tunes.
A review of Poco’s first live album was excited about their optimism and energy, but then said “Though if you listen to the lyrics, you realize you’re tapping your foot to heartbreak.”
Oh, look at me
Sittin’ starin’ at the rain
Knowin’ the days that we once knew
Won’t ever come again
Well, it seems too strange to really be
So I pinch myself and I find…
‘Oh, yeah. It’s me’.
Consequently, So Long (starts at 5:28 in this medley)
I had been wondering off and on about the traditional song Glenlogie for several years now, having heard it only once on public radio, not knowing what it was called nor any of the lyrics except for what turned out to be the title. I couldn’t find it because I had been searching for “Glen Logie”, having assumed that it referred to an actual glen and not a person’s name.
The song sounds like reflective wistfulness in the face of an approaching winter, and my mind also added a placid, reed-filled lake under a twilight cloudy sky in the titular “glen”.
I stumbled on it today at random via surfing the folk music sections of Wikipedia. The song’s actually about a young woman who pursues a man’s hand in marriage and it is finally accepted. Huh.
I don’t want to hassle with YouTube but here is a link to some versions of it
That reminded me of The Fields of Athenry.
Whenever the extended family went to DisneyWorld, we used to sneak away from the kids and catch a Scottish Bagpipe Rock Band (Off Kilter) who would do a rousing almost-military heart-pounding rendition.
It wasn’t til years later that I checked the lyrics, figuring that I’d learn about the Battle of Athenry…
Nooope, it’s not heart-pounding, it’s heart-breaking. The story of a young pregnant girl who’ll have tor raise her child alone as her love is taken in chains onto the prison ship to Australia.
(Lyrics are below the video)
I’ll nominate Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones, a driving up-tempo rocker about a guy who is in deep depression after the death of his lover.
“Good Night” by the Beatles has fluffy clouds of spun-sugar music to match its sweet beddy-bye lyrics. No contradiction on the surface. The irony is in relation to its subtext, being the only thing that follows “Revolution 9.” It becomes less cuddly and cozy in that light, what TV Tropes calls “fridge horror.”
I’ll nominate “Crippled Inside” by John Lennon. Its jolly, old-timey ricky-ticky piano boogie is set to lyrics about a tragically messed-up human being. The stark contrast between jolly music and grim lyrics is like a skeleton in a clown suit.
One of my favorite cello warmups is to play the “Star-Spangled Banner” in deep C minor using the open C string. Damn, it sounds like the end of the world. Cellists, try it.
There’s an ice cream truck whose jingle I can hear outside my apartment every couple of weeks, at the same time of day regardless of time of year. If it is during the summer when it is light out, it is anodyne. If it is already dark out and I can’t hear anyone running to the truck, it would seem sort of creepy even if the music were otherwise perfect. However, this truck has its speaker slightly slower and lower-tuned, which removes the “sort of” from the equation when it is dark out.
“Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad” by the Grateful Dead.
“Don’t want to be treated this-a way!”
Heavily glum lyrics set to the brightest, happiest music you ever did hear. In the concert film, Donna Godchaux is smiling with pleasure as she belts out the grim words. The beat is that catchy.
In the same vein, the Dead’s “Me and My Uncle.” Written by John Phillips.
Per Wiki: It relates the journey of a narrator and his uncle from southern Colorado towards west Texas, involving standard cowboy song themes like a poker game in Santa Fe, accusations of cheating, gunplay, gold, and death.
All to absofuckinglutely killer picking by Jerry and free-wheeling vocals by Bob.
I always took the up-tempo aspect of the song as anger-- the singer is in the ‘angry’ stage of mourning, raging against the world.
The Doors’ song ‘Moonlight Drive’ seems happy and romantic, and for most the the song it is…until the outro stinger:
Come on baby, gonna take a little ride
Down, down by the ocean side
Gonna get real close
Get real tight
Baby gonna drown tonight
Goin’ down, down, down
The Doors, “Peace Frog” has a very peppy beat, but the lyrics…
There’s blood on streets up to my ankles
Blood on the streets up to my knees…
I Hate Everyone by Get Set Go. Nice jaunty little tune to sing along with on One of Those Days.
Lots of examples of sad lyrics attached to happy melodies, for lack of a better musical description. Are there many of the opposite? “Sad” songs where the lyrics are actually happy?
“My Funny Valentine”?
I Killed Mommy by the Dayglo Abortions has a happy, upbeat sound.