History LyricalDissonance / Rock

** "Table Top Joe" starts out with a relaxed, jazzy piano line. Once the words start, you learn that the eponymous Joe is a circus freak without a body below the waist. Even stranger is the fact that he was a real guy. Although, with a voice like Tom Waits', it may be difficult to trick people into thinking you're just being happy.

* Cheekface:

** "Next To Me (Yo Guy Version)" is a cheery, upbeat song with their typically goofy lyrics, but between the lines, it's a very plaintive song about being unable to deal with either UnrequitedLove or [[BreakupSong a breakup]] and wishing their partner would be by their side through all the pain and confusion. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Also, the singer keeps saying "yo" outside their partner's house and someone inside keeps angrily telling them to shut the fuck up.]]

* Cheekface's "You Always Want to Bomb the Middle East" is a bouncy, campy summer jam à la Music/TheB52s, but is fundamentally an unflattering character portrait of a politician [[WarForFunAndProfit who would rather start wars and conflict over doing literally anything else]]. {{Downplayed|Trope}} in that that the tone of the lyrics themselves play the subject matter in [[BlackComedy a comical, deliberately absurd way]], framing such destructive actions as less morally heinous and more a case of seriously SkewedPriorities.

* Music/BadBrains' "Sailin' On" and "Attitude" are, respectively, a happy-sounding breakup song and an angry-sounding song about keeping a "positive mental attitude". However, both sort of work in context: "Sailin' On" is about how the singer is able to move on from a bad relationship, and "Attitude" is about defying those who would try to keep you down.

* Several songs by Sparks fall into this category, notably "Here in Heaven", which is sung from the point of view of the ''successful'' half of a broken suicide pact.

* 10cc's "Rubber Bullets" is a happy, peppy, upbeat tune about a prison riot.

* Phil Collins has "Take Me Home". A very upbeat song, with one of the most catchy choruses of the decade (which is saying something, since the 80's was a time of catchy choruses), which was allegedly inspired by the book "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and was written from the point of view of a mental patient. The line "They can turn off my feeling, like they're turning off a light" is downright sinister, if you have read the book.

* "Photograph," as sung by Ringo Starr, has lyrics about losing a loved one forever, but is performed almost cheerfully and in such a way as to encourage singing along, complete with dramatic string crescendo at the end.

* Sting's "Brand New Day" is a bright, shiny, upbeat song about getting caught up in memories of an ex from years ago, bumping into them in the street that same day, and trying (possibly succeeding) to rekindle that romance. Naturally, it's the current title song of ''The Early Show'' and is constantly used in commercials for ''The Next Big Thing''.

* Music/{{Kansas}}' "Song for America" is about how humans have completely destroyed the beauty of America. You wouldn't know by the quick, jolly sound and peppily sung lyrics:

* Porcupine Tree's catalog consists almost entirely of dark depressing-sounding songs with dark lyrics, and happy or at least pleasant-sounding songs with dark lyrics (such that when one of the occasional songs with actual happy lyrics comes around, like "Rest Will Flow" it's hard not to look for some dark subtext). There are too many examples of happy or pretty sounding music with depressing lyrics to name them all, but "Mellotron Scratch", "Trains," "Lips of Ashes", "Stranger by the Minute", "Piano Lessons" are all good examples.

* "Legend of a Mind" by The Moody Blues is an upbeat soft-rock track -- about the infamous psychologist and [=LSD=] guru Timothy Leary.
* Kansas' "Song for America" is about how humans have completely destroyed the beauty of America. You wouldn't know by the quick, jolly sound and peppily sung lyrics:

* "Breakdown" by The Alan Parsons Project. One of the most upbeat tunes on that album, but the lyric is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - the protagonist is suffering a mental breakdown.

** And then there's "Allentown", a rather peppy little number in which the narrator talks about how the region (and especially nearby Bethlehem) is full of crushed dreams and dying factories. Depending on your interpretation of the lyrics, the last verse possibly ends with the narrator succumbing to a depressive episode, or possibly even dying or [[DrivenToSuicide killing himself]].

* "Shooting Star" by Music/BadCompany is an up-tempo rock song that tells a story about a rock star's fame, loneliness, and, eventually, suicide. The song was written a tribute to all the [[TruthInTelevision real rock musicians]] (more specifically, Music/JimiHendrix, [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]], and Music/JanisJoplin]]) who died too young--which doesn't make the tune any less cheerful and does make the lyrics even more tragic.

* "Shooting Star" by Music/BadCompany is an up-tempo rock song that tells a story about a rock star's fame, loneliness, and, eventually, suicide. The song may be a tribute to all the [[TruthInTelevision real rock musicians]] who died too young--which doesn't make the tune any less cheerful and does make the lyrics even more tragic. Paul Kossoff, guitarist of Paul Rodgers' last band, Free, died in 1976 of [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll drug addiction]]. "Shooting Star" might be [[TearJerker a heartfelt tribute to him]].

* This was more or less the defining trope of Music/HidetoMatsumoto's solo work. His loud, often upbeat songs covered such topics as addiction, bipolar disorder, societal problems, and terminal illness.

** The Misfits' "Skulls" is already a very poppy song considering the subject matter, but The Lemonheads recorded a slowed down, acoustic cover, where Evan Dando delivers lines like "Demon I am and face I peel / To see your skin turned inside out" like he's singing a romantic ballad.

* Music/{{Rush}} has "Red Sector A", a catchy upbeat song that you can't help but dance to. ''It's about the Holocaust.''

* Stereophonics do this a lot -- most effectively in "Local Boy In The Photograph" -- an uptempo rock song...about the anniversary of a friend's death, who committed suicide by standing in the path of a train. Ouch.

** There's also "Congratulations", a breezy, vaguely tropical-sounding ballad that seems to be about how alienated the band's sudden success has made them feel.

** "Working On the Highway". It is not about a dream summer job outdoors, but of forced labor as a prisoner.

** "Easy Money" sounds awfully cheerful for a song about armed robbery.

* Music/{{Queen}}:

* "Band On The Run" from ''Music/BandOnTheRun'' by Music/{{Wings}} is a perky, cheerful song...about a rock band who were imprisoned for some unstated reason (though one verse implies that the reason might be robbery) and have escaped. It's thus also an example of ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.

* Music/PaulMcCartney and Music/{{Wings}}' [[http://tinysong.com/6ObT "Live and Let Die"]] ([[http://tinysong.com/7esa covered by]] Music/GunsNRoses) is pretty happy, if aggressive, and to be fair, it's sparse on the lyrics, but what is there is chastising a naive listener for ''caring about other people''.

* Cheekface's "You Always Want to Bomb the Middle East" is a bouncy, campy summer jam à la Music/TheB52s, but is fundamentally an unflattering character portrait of a politician [[WarForFunAndProfit who would rather start wars and conflict over doing literally anything else]]. {{Downplayed|Trope}} in that that the tone of the lyrics themselves play the subject matter in [[BlackComedy a comical, deliberately absurd way]].