Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Is there a scientific formula to create a song that makes you happy, that lifts your spirits to take you to another place where the sun shines and people always smile? If there is, I suppose Pharrell Williams figured it out when he wrote Happy, his mega hit from a couple of years ago.

I’ve tried to make Happy seem unhappy by singing along to a karaoke track of it with lyrics straight out of the Sad Country Songbook: my wife is a-cheatin’ with my best friend, I’m as broke as a rat in mud, the bossman fired me, them kids be ill etc. It didn’t work: I was still happy. The experiment was, of course imperfect. Not only was I in on the joke but I was also its perpetrator, having rather too much fun with my excruciating rhyme (or distinct lack thereof). I could have tried my experiment on unsuspecting bystanders, but I cannot escape the conclusion that their emotion would have been neither happy nor unhappy but excessively violent.

Still, Happy is self-evidently happy. So is Chuck Mangione’s Feels So Good or Bill Withers’ Lovely Day. They are upbeat and happy songs, and would be understood to have those qualities even if their titles didn’t give us emotional instructions.

Many songs on this mix fit the definition of the “happy song”; the Young Rascals even insert birdsong into their groove of chilled-out joy on this mix. Others suggest the happiness by their lyrics, such as Stoned Cold Picnic. But that can deceive. To me The Delfonics’ Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time) has a giddily cheery sound but it is actually a pretty brutal break-up song (of course, it doesn’t feature). Likewise The Five Stairsteps’ O-o-h Child sounds like a happy number but the lyrics make only a promise in a time of darkness that things will get better — which might qualify it for this series, should there be one, anyway.

Some others may express my personal, subjective experience of being uplifted by a piece of music, perhaps even by a happy memory. Saturday In The Park is one such selection.

So, here”s a first batch of my happy songs. What would be yours?

As ever, CD-R length, home-happydanced covers, PW in comments.

1. Bill Withers – Lovely Day (1977)
2. Andy Gibb – I Just Wanna Be Your Everything (1977)
3. Earth, Wind & Fire – In The Stone (1979)
4. Chuck Mangione – Feels So Good (1977)
5. Fatima Rayney – Hey (1997)
6. Corinne Bailey Rae – Put Your Records On (2006)
7. Colbie Caillat – Bubbly (2007)
8. Hedwig and the Angry Inch – Wig in a Box (2001)
9. Lenny Kravitz – It Ain’t Over Till It”s Over (1991)
10. TLC – Diggin’ On You (1994)
11. Gwen Guthrie – (They Long To Be) Close To You (1986)
12. Blow Monkeys – It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way (1986)
13. John Lennon – Instant Karma (1970)
14. Young Rascals – Groovin’ (1967)
15. The 5th Dimension – Stoned Soul Picnic (1968)
16. Stevie Wonder – Uptight (Everything’s Alright) (1965)
17. Four Tops – I Can’t Help Myself (1965)
18. Mood Mosaic – A Touch Of Velvet-A Sting Of Brass (1966)
19. Chicago – Saturday In The Park (1972)
20. Mungo Jerry – Mighty Man (1970)

GET IT!

More CD-R length mixes