“Happy”

June 26, 2015 • 7:30 am

“Happy“, written and performed by Pharrell Williams, was a huge hit all over the world, reaching #1 in many lands, including the US and the UK. (The YouTube video has over 681 million views!) Yet for some reason I completely missed it, probably because, as a curmudgeon, I no longer listen to music radio. I found the song last night and was amazed at how good it was. Although it’s considered “black music,” it’s neither rap nor soul, but it’s much closer to Motown (e.g., “My Girl”) than to rap.

Williams also co-wrote the infamous but wildly successful “Blurred Lines“, and was sued for plagiarizing Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” (note the resemblance). Nevertheless, he seems to be an enormous talent: on “Happy” he not only wrote the song and sang it, but also played keyboard, drums, and bass. And the music video is really nice, with a whole array of boogying people.

Williams’s falsetto, demonstrated in the chorus at 0:49, 1:37, 2:25, 2:49, 3:25, and 3:49, reminds me a lot of Smokey Robinson when he was with the Miracles. Anyway, this is a good start to the weekend:

45 thoughts on ““Happy””

  2. On that note, I can’t let the day go by without wishing you “Happy Trails”, PCC! Have a good vacation, great times with old and new friends, and stay safe.

  4. I was so . . . Happy, when I finally purchased the two disc album Marin Gaye Live At The London Palladium back in 197whatever.

    My older brother made fun of me. And then stole it so he could listen to it. On his head phones so no one would know. But I caught him.

    I really like the live version of Got To Give It Up on that album. I still have that album (and many others), and the vinyl discs are still in good condition. For a while turn-tables were hard to come by, but they are staging a comeback.

    1. If you like Marvin Gaye, you might what to check out St. Paul & the broken bones.
      I discovered them yesterday. They have a very nice album out, called “Half the city”.

  5. It certainly does the trick, very infectious and spawned a lot of take offs from all ages, which is why it appeals. I think your right it has Motown all over it.

  6. Glad you enjoyed the song Prof CC.

    However, given your rejection of music radio, consider yourself lucky. “Happy” was such a hit, every popular music station was apparently forced to play the song every 10 minutes. At one point it was as inescapable
    and suffocating as the infamous Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” Like that song, what was on first hearing a relatively charming ditty turned into water torture, making normal people want to jump out of their own cars on the highway rather than hear it again.

    (Especially: Anyone with kids who are “popular-radio-demanding-in-the-car-age” will understand what I’m saying).

    2. It took me months to get tired of the song! And after a break, it’s good to rehear it now. Some days you just need a happy song.

    1. There’s a spot in the video where he double-points and rolls his eyes skyward. On the word “Truth”.

        1. He’s an absolute musical genius and I’m glad you like him – any time over the last fifteen years that someone like Britney Spears or some other manufactured pop star has released an uncharacteristically great song the odds are Pharrell wrote it.

          He’s a true gun-for-hire for a whole swathe of artists, either as producer or writer, and he wrote/produced an absolutely brilliant album called Kaleidoscope for r & b singer Kelis back when I was at college.

          That Blurred Lines song is utterly repellent, and he’s notoriously a bit of a prick, but when he writes stuff like ‘Bobby James’, six minutes of woozy genius about the crack habit of a young, bullied schoolkid, I wouldn’t care if he was Ann Coulter.

    1. “The Ultimate Rule ought to be: ‘If it sounds GOOD to you, it’s bitchin’; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it’s shitty. The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don’t like.” Frank Zappa

      Rasmo, I tend to feel the same way as you about this song, but you and I are in a minority for whatever reason. Luckily enough it’s easy to listen to only the type of music you prefer, and to do so in a myriad of ways. For that I am immensely grateful to the technologies that have produced this great potential.

      While I may not prefer “Happy” at least it is more of a Motown feel than the current hip hop culture of sampling, odd falsettos, and obdurate rap sequences. Just as with the rock of the 70s, the Motown sounds of the 70s was special.

      Jerry shares with us his musical preferences, much of it stemming from his young adulthood, just as the rest of us perhaps were most impressionable during that stage of our lives. I enjoy learning of his perspective even if it doesn’t always mesh with mine. It does at least expand mine in a direction more pleasing that the musical direction of my children. This is likely because I, too, am a curmudgeon.

  10. We performed “Happy” as part of a yearly show by the theatrical group at the over-55 community where I winter. A tap routine was performed (all women, some over 70). Since I need to concentrate to put one foot ahead of the other, I did not perform that routine.

  11. This is a pretty good song,I must admit, but Blurred Lines is revolting. Everyone talks about it being a clear ripoff of Marvin Gaye, and it sure is. I Heard it for the first time on the radio, they started out playing Gaye, then switched to Blurred Lines w/o saying anything and I couldn’t tell the difference.

    But, what’s more disturbing than the blatant artistic pilfering is that as far as I’m concerned, it’s basically a rape song. That was my impression when I first heard it, then I saw the video…wow. It really is like getting to look inside the mind of a date rapist. sick and creepy.

    1. Since it came out at the same time that 50 Shades of Gray parts 1,2, and 3 were on the NY Times bestseller list, I didn’t make that connection at all. I saw it as a fantasy about rough sex, which is what 50 Shades of Gray is.

      1. cant say i read it, cant say i ever will. do find it odd that it was so popular being as “older man grooming younger woman” is usually considered horribly offensive, sexist, and predatory. but what do i know? The world around rarely makes sense anyway, so I’ll stick to my science and history books and my folk, punk, classic rock, and classical music. 😁

  12. (disclaimer: I’m an unabashed fan of this song)

    Pharrell made a 24-hour video project for this song: “24 hours of Happy” When you click on it, you go to the correct video for the hour. In each hour the song repeats as different people dance to the song on the streets of Los Angeles. Most of the dancers are ordinary people, but some are trained dancers and there are a few actors in the mix. I think the official video includes clips from the 24 hours, but I haven’t seen all 24. Each individual hour is on youtube by itself too. The night hours were filmed at night, the day during the day. At the end of each segment the next dancer takes over. Sometimes someone who seems like a passerby turns out to be the next dancer. At the end of the video linked by Jerry, you can click on the 5 a.m. video, in which the “minions” dance. Minions are cartoon characters from “Despicable Me 2” the movie for which Pharrell composed the song. The “Happy” song was composed to characterize one of the minions, who is obnoxiously, irrepressibly, happy. The Los Angeles videos inspired countless city & university videos all over the world. (including Iran, where participants were arrested) He famously got weepy watching clips from these videos during an interview with Oprah:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQdjnh4_M5M

    The 24 Hours of Happy:
    http://24hoursofhappy.com/

    1. There was a ‘Happy’ British Muslims version, with various Muslim men and women dancing about like giddy kids and mouthing along to the lyrics. It was all rather sweet, so inevitably a number of hardline Muslim women loudly proclaimed their disgust at the sight of unveiled sisters ‘dancing like whores’, showing their faces and bare arms, etc. Hardline Islam really is dismal.

  13. Blurred Lines was also a great tune, and many thought the plagiarism case was tenuous. I won’t defend the lyrics.

  14. Here is a mix that combines Got to Give it Up and Blurred Lines. Anyone can clearly hear the similar use of the same instruments (I think a lot of cow bell), and the cadence is very similar. But did the latter rip off the former? I cannot decide, personally.

    1. I thought that court case was a rort. There are only so many sequences of notes possible, I’d say Gaye’s heirs were trying their luck and were lucky enough to find a sympathetic jury.

      Music is full of copying, from Whiter Shade of Pale to Beethoven’s Ninth. In traditional music tunes have been re-used with different words over and over again.

  15. I heard the song once a few weeks ago and only then realised that it wasn’t the same as the previous song he did with Daft Punk (Get lucky), which is what I’d previously thought was being referred to.

    Agreed that they all sound very much like (IMHO the very worst of) Motown.

    If I were related to Marvin Gaye I’d sue them to obtain a legal statement to say that it sounds nothing like Marvin Gaye.

    Right, I’m off home to listen to some My Bloody Valentine.

  16. Where have you BEEN, PCC??? LOL. I haven’t heard this in maybe 6 months now, so I was very HAPPY to hear it again and watch the video. Love all the different shapes and sizes and ages and talents of the dancers in the video. Even one kid with a kitteh T-shirt;-)

    Bon voyage. This would be good drivin’ and beltin’ along music.

    1. Pharrell Williams: ““How do you see all the stars and think there’s nothing else out there? It’s so incredibly arrogant and pompous,”

      So looking at the universe and not seeing evidence for a God is arrogant and pompous.

      But so long as you declare there IS a God…well that’s not arrogant and pompous.

      How…convenient.

  18. A lot of the current popular music is very good, IMO, and a great deal of it is not rock and roll.

    1. I have been enjoying that tv series, but I have been so busy I could not keep up with it and the few other series that I follow.

    1. Yeah, I much like Weird Al’s version (a.k.a. ‘Tacky’). The tune does nothing at all for me musically, but the choreography is great. And I *love* Weird Al’s pants (his first pair at the start of the video, that is).

      cr

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