Happy Songs That Are Secretly Sad

Great for parties. Do not read the lyrics at the party.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. A San Francisco cable car at sunset with a broken pocket mirror and a cassette tape on its wooden seat.

    10. Semi-Charmed Life

    Third Eye Blind · 1997

    Doo doo doo chants borrowed from Walk on the Wild Side, a sunny San Francisco video, number four on the Hot 100, and lyrics about a crystal meth addiction. The label issued several radio edits. Stephan Jenkins says most people heard a happy summertime jam. They did.

  2. A cramped hotel room at night with crumpled notebook pages on the bed and a guitar leaning against a mirror.

    09. Dancing in the Dark

    Bruce Springsteen · 1984

    Jon Landau told Springsteen the album needed a single. Springsteen snapped that he had written seventy songs, then went back to his hotel and wrote this overnight, about isolation and not being able to write a hit. It became his biggest hit. The frustration was the hook.

  3. A sunny beach at golden hour with a single empty lounge chair and a bouquet of white lilies on it.

    08. Seasons in the Sun

    Terry Jacks · 1974

    Jacques Brel's Le Moribond, about a dying man saying goodbye, softened by Jacks after the original seemed too macabre and dedicated to a friend dying of leukemia. The Beach Boys tried it first and threw it out. It went worldwide, sounding like a sunny afternoon. It is a funeral.

  4. An old sedan parked at the edge of a highway in the Texas hill country at dawn, two folding chairs and a picnic basket beside it.

    07. The Way

    Fastball · 1998

    Inspired by Lela and Raymond Howard, an elderly Texas couple who left for a festival nearby in 1997 and were found two weeks later in a ravine in Arkansas. Tony Scalzo turned it into a breezy song about leaving everything behind. The road trip is real. So is the ending.

  5. A huge orange moon rising over a flooded cornfield, a picnic blanket and a transistor radio on a hill above it.

    06. Bad Moon Rising

    Creedence Clearwater Revival · 1969

    John Fogerty wrote it after The Devil and Daniel Webster and says it is about the coming apocalypse. He only noticed while the band was learning it that the tune sounds happy, and it did not bother him. Two minutes and change of hurricanes and ruin, perfect for a barbecue.

  6. A cluster of red balloons drifting over a concrete border wall at dusk, distant jets streaking the sky.

    05. 99 Luftballons

    Nena · 1983

    Nena's guitarist watched balloons drift toward the Berlin Wall at a Rolling Stones show and wrote a bouncy synth-pop song in which they set off nuclear war. It hit number two in the US, in German, behind Van Halen's Jump. Americans danced to the end of the world.

  7. A circus calliope in an empty big top after the show, a red clown nose resting on its keyboard.

    04. The Tears of a Clown

    Smokey Robinson & the Miracles · 1970

    Stevie Wonder brought an instrumental to Motown's 1966 Christmas party; Smokey said its calliope sounded like a circus and wrote about a clown hiding heartbreak, Pagliacci-style. Re-released three years later, it hit number one in the UK, then the US. Honk honk, sob.

  8. A faded denim jacket hanging on a chain-link fence in front of a closed factory, a worn military dog tag on a nail.

    03. Born in the U.S.A.

    Bruce Springsteen · 1984

    A stadium chorus over the story of a Vietnam vet with no job and no place left to go. Ronald Reagan praised Springsteen's message of hope at a 1984 rally anyway, and staffers said his favorite song was Born to Run. Johnny Carson had notes. Nobody listened past the chorus.

  9. An empty corner of a nightclub with strobe lights, a single coat on a chair and a half-finished drink sweating on a ledge.

    02. Dancing On My Own

    Robyn · 2010

    Written during a dark week while Robyn's engagement was fraying: a woman in a club watching the person she loves kiss someone else, set to a synth that will not stop. Rolling Stone put it at number 20 of all time. The founding document of the sad banger.

  10. An instant camera photo developing on a dance floor next to a wedding ring left on a speaker.

    01. Hey Ya!

    Outkast · 2003

    Andre 3000 wrote a perfect wedding-reception song about a couple staying together out of habit, wondering why love should be the exception to nothing lasting. It went to number one in the US and well beyond, and crowds clapped along to the doubts. Shake it like a divorce filing.

Honorable mentions

  • A pair of brand-new bright sneakers on a school bleacher step, untied and alone, the field empty below.

    Pumped Up Kicks

    Foster the People · 2010

    Mark Foster wrote it in five hours at his jingle-writing job, and it shows: the whistling, the bass, the hook. The lyrics are from the view of a troubled teen with violent thoughts, after Foster read about teen mental illness. Darker than sad. Most people just whistled.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A vintage typewriter on an old writing desk overlooking a Caribbean bay, a pair of binoculars beside it.

    Every Breath You Take

    The Police · 1983

    The opposite problem: Sting wrote it at Ian Fleming's desk thinking about surveillance, and calls it sinister and ugly. Couples slow-dance to it anyway. It topped the Hot 100 for eight weeks and pays a big share of his publishing. He has made his peace with that.

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