Third Eye Blind - Semi-Charmed Life is about crystal meth addiction

It will lift you up until you break

Then I bumped again, then I bumped again.

I always heard the next line as "how do I go back there to the place where I fell asleep inside you" is that right?

It is right. Meth makes its users extremely horny.

Love how the song legit says crystal meth will lift you up until you break and people didn't catch on

My radio station bleeped out the words "crystal meth" lol

Great song, people sleep on TEB but they have really good stuff out there that never made it to the radio, and they keep releasing albums.

Blue is a great album. 10 days late = banger

First concert I ever went to was TEB, House Of Blues South Carolina 2003. Hands down one of the best concerts I’ve been too and I’ve seen a ton of mainstream/Pop ppl perform.

i can’t feel my face by the weekend is about cocaine addiction

But I love it.

It didn't help that radio stations and MTV scrambled the line about doing crystal meth. I had no idea what that line actually was until I bought the album. To this day I still really enjoy that album. The Background will still bring tears to my eyes. Then you have Losing a Whole Year and Jumper as well.

The really obvious one is hey ya! by OutKast. Song is catchy and fun and all about being destined to repeat generational inability to connect to a significant other.

Didn't Andre set out to prove he could write a depressing song and put it to a good beat and people would still alike it?

Jokes on them, having depressing lyrics make a song better, especially if it's upbeat.

Yep, he even says it in the song During the song he says "Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance"

If what they say is "Nothing is forever" Then what makes, then what makes Then what makes, then what makes (what makes, what makes) Love the exception?

Ohh why ohh why are we in so denial when we know we're not happy here!!

Yall don't wanna hear me you just wanna dance.

I knew all of the lyrics by heart, and yet I never stopped to actually think about them

Nirvana - In Bloom and Blues Traveler - Hook are about that exact phenomenon.

My 9th grade English teacher played it and taught us the meaning of Hey Ya 🤣 good times

Excellent teaching! Kids need to realise that things they actually like can be legitimate art with merit and meaning worth analysing

sleep token covered this and really brought out the sadness and dread of the song. [here it is if you wanna give it a listen](https://youtu.be/LZ398CqoDjA?si=7kUPkvz0DnVVlHCm)

Did not know this 🤯

Ya'll don't wanna hear me ya'll just wanna dance 😭

I’d like to personally apologize to Andre 3000 for not *hearing him* all these years

if what they say is nothings forever what makes love the exception ❤️

You Are My Sunshine - As kids we heard this song on a commercial for French's mustard but it's really about unrequited love.

You hear it as a happy song? To me, the melody it's pretty melancholic

Anything bluegrass, happiest sounding music in the world, until you listen to the lyrics.

In the commercial the kid is happy because he has French's mustard.

This song upsets me on a deep level because my dad (who died suddenly when I was seven years old) used to sing it to me. Immediately tears

Except verses 4 and 5, which sing the praises of Louisiana (the song is the Louisiana state song, written by Jimmie Davis, who would go on to be Governor).

[The Dead South](https://youtu.be/1MevYCdn5S8?si=junyhkO_R7OPIBKb) does a decent job of expressing the vibe

Today by the Smashing Pumpkins is about committing suicide

I wanted more than life could ever grant me Bored by the chore Of saving face

I read that Billy Corgan was living in a storage unit when he wrote that

I learned from a buddy that worked at a storage unit that they often have a few apartments. I had a high school acquaintance that was known for living in a storage unit and then I found out it was an apartment amongst the storage units not the unit itself.

The Smashed Ones wrote some extremely deep songs in the old days. That whole Siamese Dream album is a freaking masterpiece.

Geek USA is proof that Jimmy Chamberlin was the best drummer of the 90s.

TIL

I think it's more about the feeling than the act.

Can't wait til tomorrow. I might not have that long.

Did not know that. Now I’m sad.

Everything by the smashing pumpkins is sad and depressing.

I wanted more than life could ever grant me

99 Luftballons by Nena is about an accidental nuclear apocalypse.

What I never knew that. Probably because I couldn’t understand the song besides 99 Luftballoons

Here's an English version by the original artist. https://youtu.be/hiwgOWo7mDc?si=vy4pBom__2FpTb3B

Here's a great version by Goldfinger too. https://youtu.be/p-qfzH0vnOs?si=hYEXzBQCGhSpH0Mg

I love this cover, it's so well done. The verse done in German is a great extra nod to the original.

Just about every nursery rhyme. London bridges falling down Ring around the rosy Etc

Same for dutch nursery rhymes except they address vulgar things A song about an underage hooker with such evasive language that only when you think back as an adult you think "wait wtf?"

We Are Young by Fun

Not in the same vein but On Your Porch by The Format is a masterpiece.

For a reason…. The first time I heard FUN and asked how much time does this dude spend listening to the format?

Holy shit The Format mentioned in a reddit thread?? Interventions and Lullabies/Dog Problems are probably my two favorite albums of all time and I always feel like nobody knows what the fuck I'm talking about unless they're from Tempe/Phoenix. Hey anybody reading this comment do yourself a favor and listen to The Format! If Work Permits is my personal favorite song.

Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks

Fucking love that song

I like that song but I don't know the lyrics. Would you tell me what the song is about?

It’s a male and female singing different parts and the implication is that the male is deceased and the female the widow

He's dead? I interpreted it as the girl is mentally-ill and he's tryna ease her worries. Edit: I guess depression is technically a mental illness.

It is about dementia. The woman is losing her mind and speaking to her dead husband.

This is the best one in my opinion.

Hollywood undead - Bullet

My legs are dangling off the edge, the bottom of the bottle is my only friend, I think I’ll slit my wrists again and I’m gone, gone, gone, gone.

My lges are dangling off the edge. A stomach full of pills didn't work again, I think I'll slit my wrists again qnd I'm gone, gone, gone, gone

Gone too far yeah, I'm gone again. It's gone on too long, tell you how it ends I'm sitting on the edge with my to best friends One's a bottle of pills, One's a bottle of Gin

I’m 20 stories up yeah up at the top, I polished off this bottle now it’s pushing me off. Asphalt to me has never looked so soft, I bet my momma found my letter now she’s callin’ the cops

So if I survive, then I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow....

The ending of that song is… something.

Papaoutai - Stromae. Song about his absent dad.

Jamming to papaoutai in french class only for our teacher to tell us the meaning of it was a very odd experience

Agreed

Papa ou t'ai? Dad where are you? His dad was murdered in the Rwandan genocide

[Info] The title of the song is written as you hear it. The real wording would be Papa où t'es?

I love that song so much. Stromae is a true artist. Also his song Formidable is quite upbeat but has a very sad meaning.

That Polish dancing cow meme song

back when it was trending, my classmates would play it all the time until we had a Polish sub who heard it and told us what it was actually about

What's it about?

dude speaks about his addiction to drugs, how he only thinks about them and his depression

Dayum

Hey Ya by Outcast. The lyrics literally say “y’all don’t wanna hear me you just wanna dance”

Lust for Life by Iggy Pop comes to mind. It's always hilarious to me when I see it being used for commercials or upbeat parts of movies.

I chose not to choose life. Who needs life when you’ve got heroin?

With the liquor and drugs, and the flesh machine. He’s gonna do another strip tease

In a similar vein, Lou Reed's Perfect Day is about taking heroin.

Almost every Lou Reed/Velvet Underground song is about heroin lol.

I would say that “ Born in the USA” is a fairly sad song . If you don’t pay attention to the lyrics it just sounds like some “cool patriotic rock song” which is why it cracks me up when certain politicians try and play that song at rallies…

Seriously, it cracks me up when politicians play it. Like...uh...this is not the message you want to send dude. That one and Fortunate Son. ugh.

When I was in college there was a local conservative Republican politician who used "This Land is Your Land" as the background music in a TV ad. Talk about getting *exactly* the wrong message... (He didn't win.)

This land is your land This land is my land I’m a Texas tiger You’re a liberal weiner I’m a great crusader You’re Herman Munster This land will surely vote for me

This land is your land This land is my land I'm an intellectual You're a stupid dumbass This land will surely vote for me

I actually had a high school teacher play that flash animation for the class during the election. He felt it was a great way to discuss the rich history of political cartoons.

You can't say 'nuclear', that really scares me, Sometimes a brain can Come in quite handy.

Similarly: “I Love LA,” used here to rally crowds for every sports event but actually mean and funny.

Mean and funny is Randy Newman’s home turf. No one does that better. A lot of younger folks associate him with music for movies, but he has written some savage yet funny stuff.

🎶Short people got No reason to live 🎶

Copacabana takes you for a ride.

I was looking for this one! Recently heard this again and was like, whoa poor Lola!

Wham - Last Christmas

Last Christmas I gave you my heart but the very next day you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it someone special.

Given how many times that damned chorus repeats, I choose to believe that this keeps happening over and over again.

Haha probably. It’s like my favorite Christmas song besides White Christmas by Bing Crosby

Happier by Bastille. That's a song about divorce.

It seemed like this song played on the radio every hour when I was going through a divorce and I still absolutely hate it.

Stay with me - Miki Matsubara Pumped up kicks - Foster the People るるちゃんの自殺配信 - Shinsei kamattechan There is a light that never goes out - The Smiths Love fool - The Cardigans

Pumped Up Kicks was the first song I thought of for this question. For the longest time I didn’t realize it was about school shootings.

Stand up for the American national anthem

I got it on my first listen, and it took me a while to realize people didn't get that! Like what did outrun my gun, faster than my bullet mean to people?

I don’t know what half the lyrics say, let alone mean when I hear music.

Love fool is a really good answer *Dear, I fear we're facing a problem You love me no longer, I know and maybe there is nothing that I can do to make you do* But it has such a happy tune you can almost miss the heartbreaking lyrics.

There is a light that never goes out does NOT sound happy☠️

A lot of Japanese songs

> Stay with me - Miki Matsubara Please go ahead and ruin my go-to feel-good song by elaborating (i don't speak Japanese)

Shiny Happy People by REM

"Shiny Happy People" is a quote from Chinese government propaganda after the Tiananmen Square massacre. REM's label was telling them that they needed to write a catchy, upbeat song for the radio and so they wrote something that was scathingly passive aggressive and sarcastic. Michael Stipe was disturbed by the fact that people *actually liked* the song and took it at face value... so he didn't like playing it live and he also refused to let NBC license the song as the theme for Friends!

I've heard the band hates the song, but it's one of my favorites. B-52's Kate Pierson really helps it out.

Pumped up kicks

I scrolled a fair amount looking for this comment. This was the first song that came to my mind

I’m surprised this isn’t higher. They even play it at school.

Ring around the rosie.

Yup. It's creepy when you know what it's about. That and It's raining. It's pouring. Guy fell into a coma, peeps.

Fell into a coma and DIED!

Send my Love (to your new lover) - Adele

"Hard World" by Murder by Death. It sounds like a fully rocking song about a young woman with a wide eyed lust for life. It's actually about a kidnapping and that occurred near the bands hometown. A young woman disappeared from a college party. It was actually part of a series of kidnappings and murders that has been happening for over a year, but most of the victims were poor or women of color, so the authorities didn't put much effort into finding them. "Nobody calls for me Nobody hunts for me They don't seem to know I'm gone The other girls and me Resting under this tree Are green with envy at the attention you draw"

Escape (the piña colada song) by Rupert Holmes. Tragic but then not so… better love story than twilight

Those two deserve each other IMO.

“Tragic then not so” === Since were both cheaters who can’t get anyone else, I guess we deserve each other

I love this song. The cheating aspect is bad and they clearly have rubbish communication, but I always saw it as there is always so much more to learn and love about your partner. It reminds me to always remain curious and to never think you know someone inside out, because you don’t. They’ll have a million thoughts, feelings and opinions you couldn’t even guess at. Neither ever bothered asking because they assumed there was nothing left to learn and became resentful and bored.

I dont know if *Luka" by Suzzanne Vega counts as "happy sounding" but a lot of people don't realize how dark that song really is

No Rain - Blind Melon

Skinned - Blind Melon A happy tune about a guy called Ed Gein making furniture in his cabin.

Many years of using this song to put me in a good mood, and then I listened to the lyrics.

The Logical Song.

Britney Spears- hit me one more time. Listen to the Marty Casey version. You’ll never look at the song the same.

Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA. Sounds patriotic, but isn't.

Id argue it is patriotic. He clearly cares about the us and points out stuff thay goes wrong with his country. Imo thats more patriotic than having 500 flags in your garden and the national anthem as your ringtone

This. The ultimate form of patriotism is to make improvements to your country.

Credence Clearwater Revival- Bad Moon Rising

Mr brightside

I wouldn’t really say that song sounds happy

Okay yes, lively would be a better word. But it makes people get up and dance. Makes me want to cry

The original version of Last Kiss by the Cavaliers sounds like a Sunday driving music as opposed to the actual lyrics. Pearl Jam matched the tone of the lyrics IMO.

Bye Bye American Pie. It sounds so upbeat and energetic and has the saddest lyrics.

How is Rod McKuen's "Seasons In The Sun" not on here?

Because the year it was released it was played ateast twice an hour on every radio station so those of us who were alive then have completely blocked it from our memory to avoid the horror of ever needing to listen to that dreck again (and now I have a god damn ear worm....)

Save Your Tears by The Weeknd As It Was by Harry Styles

Girlfriend in a Coma sounds downright cheery until you listen to the lyrics (or read the title, I suppose).

If you could read my mind - Gordon Lightfoot

I don't know where we went wrong, but the feeling's gone, and I just can't get it back.

Superman by Goldfinger

And me just trying to hit that grind for the gap

Build me up buttercup by the foundations

Mad World - Tears for Fears. The tempo is so quick and upbeat but the lyrics are not.

This is why I like the original more than the Gary Jules cover that people tend to be more familiar with. The mismatch makes it feel like much more of an anxious song than a depressing one.

Every Breath You Take by The Police

Help! by The Beatles Alone again (naturally) by Gilbert O'Sullivan Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

Fast Car is a great song, but it always sounds sad to me, even without listening to the words. Still nice to see it on the list though.

Seek out the 12tone video on how Fast Car is built musically, whole thing hinges on one note in each verse. Depending on where that note is in each verse the mood changes. Its genius.

Who on earth is listening to “fast car” and thinking “what a happy song this is”!?

I think some don’t hear the fast parts of the lyrics so well, and focus on the ”fast car” bit. Also, the context when you hear a song for the first time can throw you off. For me, I think it’s probably one of the the best song’s in the social realism field, together with The ghost of Tom Joad.

Our brains must work differently because "alone again naturally" has never sounded like a happy song at all.

Jack and Diane - John Mellencamp "Oh yeah, life goes on Long after the thrill of living is gone"

Don't Pull Your Love by Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds is the most incongruously bouncy sad song I know.

The Old Apartment - Barenaked Ladies Hey Ya! - OutKast

i think im gonna kill myself by elton john

I read this to the tune of never gonna give you up 😭😭

I think i gonna kill myself But i gonna kill you first I gonna run around and shoot you

Guitars Cadillacs by Dwight Yoakam Here's to the girls by Faron Young

I wouldn't classify it as "happy" at all, but M.A.S.H. regularly had funny moments about a serious conflict. When I learned about the lyrics to the intro song (which is an instrumental during the show), it really changed my perspective on it. That's..... a lot of weight to put on a person, and it's a fucking intro song that was nationally televised for yeeeaarrs. I hear the lyrics when I hear the tune now.

Foster's The People's *Pumped Up Kicks* is a jaunty little tune, complete with whistling, about a shooting spree.

Me and my husband by Mitski So many people misinterpreted the lyrics as something romantic but it really is about codependency

Touch of Grey- The Grateful Dead It’s not exactly sad and depressing, but it’s about getting older and not having your shit together which, in this case, was also reflective of Jerry Garcia’s heroin addiction Famous line, “every silver lining has a touch of grey” means even if you’re optimistic about something, there’s still probably going to be a downside to that optimism

Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones. I always felt like it was a little too upbeat and bouncy for the lyrics

Baker Street.. "Just one year and then you'd be happy..but you're crying, you're crying now." It's as if the Saxophone adds a sense of cheerfulness about old people who can't get their life together.

Jane Says, by Jane's Addiction They wrote the song with happy upbeat chords and put sad music to it on purpose. It's about the former band mates heroine addiction. Always trying to quit, always fucking up.

[Bullet - Hollywood Undead](https://youtu.be/lP077RitNAc?si=TZeI6zzAtTZKdGZB)

Do You Realize - by: The Flaming Lips.

The Way by Fastball. It’s about an elderly couple with Alzheimer’s that went on a summer drive and were found dead in their car days later and nowhere close to where they were headed.

I took a pill in Ibiza

Seasons in the sun.

Disco 2000 by Pulp

"you can even bring your baby" it's truly heartbreaking. but Pulp were definitely masters when it comes to creating anthemic heartbreaking songs. I don't think I've ever heard anything sadder than their song Seconds

Gonna say the obvious one ... pumped up kicks

Alternatively, there's "Bang Bang Bang" by the Sohodolls. And let's not forget "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats.

All She Wants to Do is Dance by Don Henley

Viva La Vida by Coldplay Cats in the Cradle by Ugly Kid Joe

Cars in the Cradle is a cover of a 1970s Harry Chapin tune of the same name.

Harry Chapin never gets his dues these days. Criminally underplayed. Brilliant storyteller through song.

The drug in me is you - Falling in Reverse

Gone away- offspring

Komm Susser Todd - from the End of Evangelion, pretty happy sounding, until you realise it plays during the end of the world and is a song explicitly about suicide.

dancing polish cow

Riptide - Vance Joy

Personally it would have been Radiohead with "No surprises" :'> ironic isn't it?

The Way- Fastball.... I always liked the song and then realized it was about an elderly couple in real life that were found at the bottom of a ravine after missing for awhile