"Happy" Music? Really Though?

The Blackbyrds' Happy Music



(Download Happy Music by The Blackbyrds at Mediafire)

The Internet doesn't have the full lyrics anywhere- so I will supply the missing lyrics which are relevant for our purposes:

" when you get up/and you gotta / start your day
feelin' lazy/and confused / you can find your way
Happy music/is the music / you need to play
if you want to/it will help you / save your day "

Good thing I am not writing my dissertation right now, because today, and the days that are like, have been and will be like, today, even preparing for class seems a chore.
Confused and Lazy.

Happy Music, sure, but also pretty dark for this band. Sort of the inverse of a point I've made before: The Stooges' "No Fun" is actually probably their most fun song.


For the Blackbyrds (most of their songs are fun, and light 'n' mellow),
this actually has a pretty dark edge.


Now, dark and happy are not strictly opposed- but neither do they have any necessary connection.
You could be both dark and happy at one moment, but that would be a bit of the old "cake and eat it too," wouldn't it?


So certainly these days (late-year, ... etc. ...) are dark, but ideally, they would be happy, for you, as well.

Bad Luck

I found $5 on the sidewalk the other day: good luck.
Other than that, I've had only Bad Luck these days (not to be self-indulgent). I mean, even the $5 had been sitting out in the rain. Got all wet.


{jump to 3:00 if you don't want to see Richard Pryor chat with them}

This Bad Luck started months ago. Of course, I know someone else who had the very same run of bad luck. Very sad and very true.
But I won't go on about it here- blogs aren't the place for showing your face.



"Blue Notes" indeed.

Anyhow: this is a good dance song about bad luck.
[as Teddy states: "Ain't it a groove!"]
Bad Luck as a danceable theme may seem strange- but then, think of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." Stevie's song came out in 1972, and the above song (with Teddy Pendergrass and the rest of Harold Melvin's Blue Notes) came out in 1975.
Was Bad Luck in the air, in the æther, those days,
as it seems to be today?