Songs that make you happier than anything

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StevieFan13
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Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by StevieFan13 »

There are a few I can think of that just make me appreciate everything around me at that moment. Off the top of my head:
- New Radicals - You Get What You Give
- They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse in Your Soul
- Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime
- Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger
- Sixpence None the Richer - Kiss Me
- Green Day - When I Come Around
- The Smiths - There is a Light That Never Goes Out (melancholy, to be sure, but beautiful)
- The Cure - Just Like Heaven
- The Cure - Friday I'm in Love
- Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
- Kendrick Lamar - i
- Charli XCX - Boom Clap
- Ben Folds Five - Philosophy
- David Bowie - Life on Mars?
- The Band - The Weight
- Wham! - I'm Your Man
- The Who - Love, Reign O'er Me
- Foo Fighters - Everlong
- Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly
- Pretty much any version of Because the Night
- R.E.M. - Man on the Moon
- R.E.M. - The Great Beyond
- Electric Light Orchestra - Mr. Blue Sky
- The La's - There She Goes
- The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - The Impression That I Get
- The Beatles - I Want to Hold Your Hand
- The Beatles - I Saw Her Standing There
- The Kinks - Waterloo Sunset
- Modern English - I Melt with You
- Kanye West - Stronger
- Jay Z - Izzo (H.O.V.A.)
- Andy Williams - The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
- Al Green - Let's Stay Together
- Stevie Wonder - Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)
- Prince - Purple Rain
- Prince - Raspberry Beret
Last edited by StevieFan13 on Fri May 26, 2017 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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babydoll
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by babydoll »

StevieFan13 wrote:- Prince - Purple Rain
Why did I think you didn't like "Purple Rain"? :?

And to answer your question: I guess nothing makes me happier than when a song I like comes on? For me, music isn't exactly emotive, but instead, I focus on how good it is.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by StevieFan13 »

babydoll wrote:
StevieFan13 wrote:- Prince - Purple Rain
Why did I think you didn't like "Purple Rain"? :?

And to answer your question: I guess nothing makes me happier than when a song I like comes on? For me, music isn't exactly emotive, but instead, I focus on how good it is.
That's odd. I don't know if I've said anything that indicates a distaste for Purple Rain. Don't know why I would. I love it to pieces.

And that makes sense.
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Rob
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by Rob »

Most of these make sense, but The Great Gig In the Sky? That's a cry of despair. I play it when I want to scream in anguish. Nothing happy about it if you ask me. Bitter Sweet Symphony isn't all that happy either.

Some songs that quickly come to mind:
Monty Python - Always Look on the Bright of Life
Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill
Grateful Dead - Touch of Grey
Much of the Beach Boys
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by Nassim »

Strange to see Black Hole Sun, Message in a Bottle and Fairytale of New-York.

Some like Stronger sounds more like songs to pump yourself up before a match, interview, workout or date than something I'd call "happiness". I'd put B.O.B. (always the final track on my running playlists) and Don't Stop Me Now on that category too, though the separation is a bit blurrier.
Mr Blue Sky though? Perfect pick!

There's not much that makes me in a better mood than when Chance the Rapper sings or raps about something that makes him happy. Chain Smoking and Blessings are good examples, but I Don't think anything can top Sunday Candy. I Don't think there has been a line delivered with more ecstatic joy than "I'm singing for my grandma, you sing it too but your grandma ain't my grandma" since the great soul singers of the 60s and 70s.

The perfect feel good album is probably Let Me Introduce My Friends by I'm from Barcelona. It's about friendship, love and other happy things like sleeping late, traveling and treehouses.
Architecture in Helsinki first albums also have a lot of stuff that make me happy : the Cemetery, Heart it Races, Like it Or Not.
In the same vein, early Los Campesinos! And Dananananaykroyd

So my picks :
Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment - Sunday Candy
Chance the Rapper - Chain Smoker
Chance the Rapper - Everything's Good (Good Ass Outro)
I'm From Barcelona - Treehouse
Toots and the Maytals - This Must Be True Love
Stevie Wonder - As
Architecture in Helsinki - The Cemetery (though Well, It's about all ending there so Wishbone or It'5 will do)
¡Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!
The Cure - The Lovecats (not the band you necessarily associate with happiness usually)
Justice vs Simian - We Are Your Friends
The Books - Take Time ("for the first time in the history of the world, a girl climbed into a tree one day, she came down from the tree next day, God bless her")
New Order - Temptation
Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything
Dananananaykroyd - Watch This
Dan Deacon - Woof Woof
Souls of Mischief - 93 til Infinity
The mid part of Sufjan Stevens - Impossible Soul
Weezer - El Scorcho
Blink-182 - Josie (one of the best proves that band was so much better with their original drummer)
Gnarls Barkley - Smiley Faces
Animal Collective - The Purple Bottle
Hannah Diamond - Pink and Blue

And in a more melancholic kind of way : Yo La Tengo - More Stars Than There Are in Heaven

Kinda want to throw LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip in there but they have a different kind of uplifting effect.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by StevieFan13 »

Sometimes a song doesn't necessarily need to be happy for me to take in the beauty of it all. I stopped myself a few times from listing depressing (Time to Pretend) or angry (Superstition) songs just because they sound beautiful to me, but in some cases I can even get past that because the tune is so beautiful. My first memories of hearing Fairytale of New York and The Great Gig in the Sky are just being consumed by the beauty of them. And Message in a Bottle, despite the subject matter, still sounds really happy. I think people sing it happily.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by StevieFan13 »

Rob wrote: Monty Python - Always Look on the Bright of Life
Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill
Forgot these!
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andyd1010
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by andyd1010 »

First thing that comes to mind for me: Island in the Sun - Weezer

Also:
Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles
Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by Setherex »

StevieFan13 wrote:Sometimes a song doesn't necessarily need to be happy for me to take in the beauty of it all. I stopped myself a few times from listing depressing (Time to Pretend) or angry (Superstition) songs just because they sound beautiful to me, but in some cases I can even get past that because the tune is so beautiful. My first memories of hearing Fairytale of New York and The Great Gig in the Sky are just being consumed by the beauty of them. And Message in a Bottle, despite the subject matter, still sounds really happy. I think people sing it happily.
http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/art ... 9-94.shtml

"I write songs best when I'm depressed," Chris tells me. "No one seems to get this, but Black Hole Sun is sad. But because the melody is really pretty, everyone thinks it's almost chipper, which is ridiculous."
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by StevieFan13 »

Oh, I always knew it was sad. But it's a beautiful kind of sadness, y'know? Some things are hard to explain. As of late, it's made me more sad than happy, I'll admit, but I'm always glad to hear it.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by Setherex »

StevieFan13 wrote:Oh, I always knew it was sad. But it's a beautiful kind of sadness, y'know? Some things are hard to explain. As of late, it's made me more sad than happy, I'll admit, but I'm always glad to hear it.
Your ability to take something unbearably sad, recognize it for its immense beauty, but somehow take away from it the exact opposite intended feeling by being, "happier than anything," is at the same time confused, admirable, inspirational, and sadistic.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

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Setherex wrote:
StevieFan13 wrote:Oh, I always knew it was sad. But it's a beautiful kind of sadness, y'know? Some things are hard to explain. As of late, it's made me more sad than happy, I'll admit, but I'm always glad to hear it.
Your ability to take something unbearably sad, recognize it for its immense beauty, but somehow take away from it the exact opposite intended feeling by being, "happier than anything," is at the same time confused, admirable, inspirational, and sadistic.
Emphasis on the confused. I guess you're right. I'll take it off.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by StevieFan13 »

Took off all the sad songs. They shouldn't make me happy, especially Black Hole Sun. I definitely don't want to be seen as sadistic.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by Setherex »

StevieFan13 wrote:Took off all the sad songs. They shouldn't make me happy, especially Black Hole Sun. I definitely don't want to be seen as sadistic.
I meant "sadistic" in a playful way more so than a negative way, haha, of course I don't want to take away the general happiness you feel towards anything in life. And I agree, all the songs you listed, sad or not, are very gorgeous in their own manners. I'm just observing that, insistently, finding happiness out of something that inevitably drove a man to do one of the worst things imaginable to himself has a context that's a little... odd, per se.
Last edited by Setherex on Fri May 26, 2017 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

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Last thing I want to do is make hay of the immense sadness Cornell felt while making the song. I have good memories associated with it,but the song itself is very sad on its own.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

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I made very good friends at summer camp through bonding over a shared love of Black Hole Sun. There's no happiness in the song, and I take no joy in Cornell's ultimate fate, but the song itself is beautiful, and every time I think of it, I think of my friend and all the good music we've bonded over. Which started with Black Hole Sun.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by StevieFan13 »

That's how it applied to a lot of the sad songs that were initially on the list. I heard Great Gig in the Sky at that same summer camp, and the guy who played it was so excited to share it. I heard Message in a Bottle for the first time when Sting was a Kennedy Center honoree, a joyous celebration of his music by admirers and colleagues.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

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StevieFan13 wrote:I made very good friends at summer camp through bonding over a shared love of Black Hole Sun. There's no happiness in the song, and I take no joy in Cornell's ultimate fate, but the song itself is beautiful, and every time I think of it, I think of my friend and all the good music we've bonded over. Which started with Black Hole Sun.
See, that's an excellent reason to feel happiness over the nostalgia of art. I just think that kind of appreciation is so oppositional to how you defined the rest of the thread that it was somewhat perplexing without context haha.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by Setherex »

Speaking of, my go-to 'I need to be happier right now' song has been CCR's "Lookin' Out My Back Door" for a few years now. Look at all those happy creatures dancing on the lawn!
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

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Setherex wrote:
StevieFan13 wrote:I made very good friends at summer camp through bonding over a shared love of Black Hole Sun. There's no happiness in the song, and I take no joy in Cornell's ultimate fate, but the song itself is beautiful, and every time I think of it, I think of my friend and all the good music we've bonded over. Which started with Black Hole Sun.
See, that's an excellent reason to feel happiness over the nostalgia of art. I just think that kind of appreciation is so oppositional to how you defined the rest of the thread that it was somewhat perplexing without context haha.
Yeah haha maybe I should've given the context upfront for why I included songs like that.
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

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Also, this:
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Re: Songs that make you happier than anything

Post by StevieFan13 »

OMIGOD, I forgot anything Carly Rae Jepsen has ever done ever.
Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand - Sir Duke (1976)
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