Brilliant Songs #48: Gettin’ “Happy” With Pharrell Williams

You know what makes me happy? That “Happy,” the 48th “Brilliant Song” in this series, has garnered 239,107 comments since it landed on You Tube a decade ago. Along with: 1.3 billion (that’s “billion”-with-a-“b”) views and 8.7 million thumbs-up. (Though for context: the all-time leading You Tube video through early August is “Baby Shark,” a children’s song-and-dance from South Korea at 14.9 billion views since 2016.)

But “billion” is a most hefty number indeed, reflected in a recent comment on top of the “Happy” pile, which exclaims, “WE STEALING THE MOON WITH THIS ONE.”

And so we are with that felicitous phrase that nonetheless implies larceny of something—human happiness— that should perhaps be regarded as a birthright to at least some degree, yes?

Like Bobby McFerrin long before him, Pharrell Williams does something both remarkably simple and ultimately profound: He writes and sings in praise of pure, unadorned happiness, that most fetching and often elusive state of Human Be-ing.

‘Happy’ exults in the kind of primal expression we see in babies as their eyes are finally able to focus on their parents’ smiles, and their whole beings follow the native instinct to return those smiles in kind.

Then he employs a coterie of highly creative professionals who make the whole enterprise come alive with video imagery that begs for a second view, leading perhaps to a third or fourth and more. That would explain some of those 1.3 billion views, people returning monthly, say, for a little espresso shot to the psyche, a reminder that things needn’t be all that complicated in this life, at least not all the time, right?

Williams implicitly addresses that question in a way that sounds and looks so freewheeling and fun, so right-in-front-of-our-faces close, that we are inclined to slap our foreheads in sudden exasperation for what a hot complicated mess we often make of the human emotion that is probably closest to the surface and most longing for expression every day of our lives.

He would not, of course, want us to go all guilty about our penchant for undercutting happiness by worrying too much about the wrong things for too much of our waking (and dreaming!) lives.

That would be defeating the very purpose of “Happy,” which is to cast off all such straitjacketed cares. “Happying” means letting our freak flags fly with the kind of abandon and expression we might employ if we knew, say, that time is short and precious, and we should not dally long in the dark caves of guilt, remorse or resentment.

Because guess what: No matter your age, time is short and precious, and…

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I got my introduction to “Happy” 10 years ago when I came upon it searching for a music selection to accompany a post on perhaps history’s unhappiest person: the ever anguished and dour 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

For all his intelligence and wit with the written word, Kierkegaard had something of an obsession with his unhappiness, which he managed to curate into a kind of philosophical art form that for all we know, may have actually allowed him satisfactions beyond our understanding. I believe one term for that phenomenon is “masochism” and another is “sublimation,” the latter probably more to the point and serving a useful function for both himself and history. (Sickly a good part of his life, he died at age 42, most likely from tuberculosis.)

All of which stands in stark contrast to Williams’s musings in “Happy,” which unlike most all the other songs in this series, makes no feints toward deep and complicated emotional states or poetic exposition. “Happy” shoots much straighter and simpler than that, exulting in the kind of primal expression we see in babies as their eyes are finally able to focus on their parents’ smiles, and their whole beings follow the native instinct to return those smiles in kind.

Soaring to No. 1 status in 35 countries as the best-selling song of 2014, “Happy” is simple in word and structure, consisting of two stanzas, a chorus and a bridge. The word “happy” is sounded 56 times, and far be it from me to grow churlish over such joyful repetition. Here, let’s give it a listen now, followed by the lyrics and some closing words.

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It might seem crazy what I’m ’bout to say
Sunshine she’s here, you can take a break
I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space
With the air, like I don’t care, baby, by the way, huh

[Chorus]
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

Here come bad news, talking this and that (Yeah!)
Well, give me all you got, don’t hold it back (Yeah!)
Well, I should probably warn ya, I’ll be just fine (Yeah!)
No offense to you, don’t waste your time, here’s why

[Chorus]

[Bridge]

(Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy,) Bring me down
Can’t nothing (Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy,) bring me down
My level’s too high to (Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy,) bring me down
Can’t nothing (Happy, Happy, Happy,) bring me down, I said…

Because I’m happy…
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do (Come on!)

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To be sure, some nice bits of poetic business there. “A room without a roof” suggests joy that has blown it right off, perhaps with a song that won’t be forestalled till it ricochets right off the stars.

“Happiness is the truth” sounds almost banal until we think to actually pose the question: Is it truth? And if our answer is yes, then what do we do? What would it mean for us to live with that mantra uppermost in mind, rather than, say, “Life is suffering.”?

It brings to mind the immortalized lines of the romantic poet John Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, —that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” 

In the next stanza, we come to the consideration—and importantly, not the abnegation—of “bad news,” which our happy dancing hero dares: “Well, give me all you got, don’t hold it back (Yeah!)”

Followed by the self-assured, polite rejoinder: “Well, I should probably warn ya, I’ll be just fine (Yeah!)”

These 10 years later, Pharrell Williams still seems to be just fine. Massive career success as a songwriter and performer. Major charitable projects. Renowned producer at one time or other for seemingly every musician in the known universe. Fashion maven serving since a year ago June as “men’s creative director” for Louis Vuitton. (Probably had something to do with “Esquire” magazine voting him “Best Dressed Man in the World” in 2008.)

Married since 2013, with four children. (The last three of them triplets in 2017; how’s that for blowing off a roof?)

None of which is to deny the jagged rocks that fate lays down in front of all creatures, the rain it sends upon the just and unjust alike. The death of a cousin at the hands of police, the massacre of nine black parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, where Williams had performed with a gospel choir just two years earlier.

Sobering events. No one can claim happiness every moment of life. But who would want to? It would lose all meaning—kind of like visions of eternal bliss in heaven.

But orientation matters. Kierkegaard went one way, Pharrell Williams another. Whether those paths are shaped more by genetics, culture, early family life, birth order, the karmic wheel of health, or other spins on the dials of life’s luck or misfortune is fodder for endless discussion and inquiry.

What we do know is that choice has a role to play, too. Sometimes circumscribed by all the factors above and more, but almost never wholly absent. Short of the most grievous disabilities, everyone can, after all, “Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do.”

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A more politically engaged sensibility here, though the quests for human freedom and human happiness are far more entangled and intimate than not…

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Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing.

Elizabeth Haslam, whose photos (except for the books) grace the rotating banner at top of page.
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/

Library books photo by Larry Rose, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com

Williams headshot by Thomas Hawk, San Francisco, California  https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/

Smiling kiddo (my grandson Kai) by Andrew Hidas https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewhidas/?

Smiling woman by Clem Onojeghuo, London, UK  https://unsplash.com/@clemono