Lyrical Dissonance / Live-Action TV

• On A.N.T. Farm, Chyna writes a few songs like this:
  • When she and Fletcher are trying to get Gibson to stop hanging out with them so much. The tempo and melody are upbeat and happy, however the lyrics are quite dark. She says things like, "...feed him fatty foods till his heart explodes" and "dehydrating his skin and make Gibson-jerky".
  • When she forms a phony children's band in which the band is dressed in stuffed animal costumes. Some of the songs are safe but just plain odd, such as "You Gotta Wear Pants in Public" and "Don't Go Potty in the Tub". however, there is a song with an up-tempo Punk Rock melody that even has a Gothic teen saying "Wow, they're dark."
    When you're doing crafts with art supplies
    Don't run with scissors, it's not too wise
    You can stab your chest, your arms, your thighs
    You could lose one or even both your eyes
• The Arrested Development episode "Afternoon Delight" involves a running gag in which several characters belatedly realize that the song of the same name is much more overtly sexual than its innocent tune suggests.
• In one episode of Babylon 5, Delenn, the ambassador from a race of Space Elves, attends a church service with Captain Sheridan, a service happens to include a jolly, cheerful Gospel Revival Number about judgement day and how it's impossible to escape. Delenn can be seen looking shocked and borderline horrified as she contrasts the lyrics with the way that everyone is joyfully singing them. (Played with on a more meta level, because while they're at the service, the scene is being intercut with scenes of the genocidal Centauri aristocrat Lord Refa being chased down by members of a species he played a part in trying to subjugate, and for him the lyrics about how there is no escaping judgement day are extremely appropriate.)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Once More, With Feeling", Buffy sings "Going Through the Motions" and "Something to Sing About", two cheery-sounding tunes about losing the will to live.
• The chirpy Ending Theme from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: "They crash him, and his body may burn. They smash him, but they know he'll return... to live again". Accompanied by images of a terrified Captain Scarlet in a variety of perilous and painful-looking situations.
• Deliberately, blatantly, and hilariously invoked by Andrew Hansen of The Chaser's War On Everything:
  • There's a lounge arrangement of the Cannibal Corpse song "Rancid Amputation", which has some very graphic lyrics about dismemberment, cannibalism, you name it.
  • During Yes We Canberra, they have a song with fast-paced and cheery music about the candidates. It's called the "Fucked Song".
• Played with in the full version of the theme to Cheers, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name". The song's melody is quite uplifting and sweet, but the lyrics describe increasingly depressing things happening to the subject of the song. However, the point of the chorus is that it's nice to have a place to go where you can escape your troubles, where you feel safe and loved and where everybody knows your name, so it can also be quite sincerely sweet and uplifting as well.
• The theme song to Community mixes cheerful tones and theme music with lyrics like "We could be roped up, tied up, dead in a year..."
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, being a dark comedic musical, is filled with these:
  • "Feelin' Kinda Naughty" sounds like a Katy Perry song and starts off like one... before it turns into a Misery-like obsession song.
  • "Sex with a Stranger" starts like a traditional pop song about stepping into the club and taking a guy home... until the singer starts hoping that the guy isn't a murderer and won't harvest her kidneys.
  • "I'm a Good Person", in which the singer attempts to make one guy believe that she is, indeed, a good person... and, in the process, threatens: "Say [that I'm a good person]! Say it or I'll gut your husband! I'll do it, I'll gut him like a fish!" to a Pharrell Williams-inspired tempo.
  • "You Stupid Bitch" is a Whitney Houston-like ballad, but all about self-loathing and self-hatred.
  • "Greg's Drinking Song" is a traditional cheery drinking, song but it's about a serious alcoholic. His description starts with him peeing his pants and escalates rapidly to insulting his boss, stealing his cousin's truck, driving it, puking on his cat, having sex with a bush, and trying to get into the cockpit to fly a plane.
  • There's also "Friendtopia", completely inspired by Spice Girls, which details having such a close bond with your friends that you're going to stage a coup and turn America into an Orwellian dystopia.
  • "Remember That We Suffered" is an upbeat klezmer song about the many horrors inflicted on the Jewish people.
  • "Man Nap" is a hair metal ballad about the virtues of taking a nap in the afternoon.
  • "Let's Generalize About Men" isn't actually that bad up until you get to the very final stanza. Her sons are gonna be rapists! Ironically, it's set to a tune very similar to "It's Raining Men".
  • "I'm Not Sad You're Sad", a British punk rap/pop song about how Rachel is totally not sad.
• In Doctor Who:
  • The full version of Murray Gold's "Song for Ten" (featured in part at the end of David Tennant's first full episode) is a cheery tune with lyrics describing his eventual separation from Rose.
    So have a good life
    Do it for me
    Make me so proud
    Like you want me to be
    And wherever you are
    I'm thinking of you
    Oceans apart
  • In "The Runaway Bride", during Donna's wedding reception, the first song heard playing is "Love Don't Roam", a happy, upbeat, peppy orchestral pop song about being separated from your loved one forever. Accordingly, while the song is playing, the Doctor's gaze falls upon a blonde woman wearing a blue dress that reminds him of the blue jacket that Rose wore during their trip to New Earth, and when her partner dips her, the Doctor has a flashback of catching Rose in his arms after Lady Cassandra left her body for the last time.
  • There's also "Tick Tock Goes the Clock", which is an example of Creepy Children Singing in that it sounds like a happy little nursery rhyme, but it has lyrics like "Tick tock goes the clock and all the years they fly / Tick tock and all too soon, you and I must die".
• Drew Careys Improvaganza had an Elizabethan-era song about strippers.^note Those were pretty common, actually.
• Galavant is largely made of this trope, including multiple cheery tunes about various characters plotting various murders and assassinations, dramatic tunes with humorous or otherwise ill-fitting lyrics, a cheerful love song highlighting the prevalence of death and disease among peasants in the era, a love-song tune entitled "Maybe You're Not The Worst Thing Ever", and more. Yet another love song plays with the trope a bit, as it is primarily the singers pointing out flaws in each other, yet being sincerely affectionate in doing so.
• Glee: Blaine decides that "Candles" by Hey Monday is the perfect song for singing a romantic duet with Kurt at regionals. The problem? It's about a girl who is alone for the first time after breaking up with her abusive boyfriend.
• The opening theme to Good Times. If you don't pay attention to the lyrics, it almost sounds like an upbeat gospel song.
  Keeping your head above water
  Making a way when you can
  Temporary layoffs (Good times)
  Easy credit ripoffs (Good times)
  Scratchin' and survivin' (Good times)
  Hangin' in the chow line (Good times)
  Ain't we lucky we got 'em?
  Good times
• Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies gives us a few of these:
  • "In the Club" is a catchy, jazzy number emphasizing that only rich, white, straight men are allowed in the country club.
  • "The Boom" is an energetic, peppy number, with a high-energy dance routine to match... all about the inevitability of death by nuclear bomb and the futility of duck and cover drills.
  • And of course, "Election Song", a rousing musical-theatre style number about how sick the school staff are of the student council election.
• Since Horrible Histories is much about the gorier, grimmer parts of history (within reason for the younger viewers) and many of their songs are quite upbeat, it's a given they'd have some of these. A few examples are "Work, Terrible Work", "Do the Pachacuti" and "The Evil Emperors Song". All cheerful numbers about, respectively, the horrors of Victorian child labour, the various ways Incan warlord Pachacuti would dismember his dead enemies and make use of their body parts, and the atrocities four Caligulas (including the Trope Namer) committed.
• "ALMIGHTY", the opening theme of Kamen Rider Saber has an upbeat tune thanks to the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra that would probably be best described as "going out on a trip with friends on a lazy Sunday morning". The lyrics are about returning from the brink of the Despair Event Horizon and moving on.
  The secret kindness blooms
  Unknowingly and scatters
  Masking the hidden tears
  The wisdom written with a surplus of loneliness
  Knows the value of a promise
  ALMIGHTY! Believe in the coming future!
• MADtv (1995) has the solution for fans of gangsta rap and barbershop quartet who want to listen to them both at the same time: the "Gangsta Shop Quartet", gangsta songs about carjacking and murder arranged in barbershop quartet medleys. Timeless classics to enjoy with that special someone or for when the whole gang is over.
  • Court date's today
    What can I say?
    I'm afraid they're gonna lock me away
    
    Got my third strike
    Got it last night
    In a drive-by massacre
    
    Now, they're all dead
    Simple shots to the head
    It all happened in a blur
    
    I sure like killin'
    Now I'll be illin'
    'Cause my third strike landed me in jail
  • Don'tcha give me no sass
    I'll bust a cap in your ass
    You know you better have my money
    'Cause you know I own that honey
    And her booty is on loan
    
    I may sound crazy
    But, her booty, I do own
    (Yes, I do own)
• In a Running Gag on The Mary Whitehouse Experience, they make fun of Robert Smith of The Cure's (brief) attempts to show his cheerful, happy side in his music. They perform songs such as "Ernie, The Fastest Milkman in the World" and "The Laughing Policeman" to the band's signature melancholic style.
• The theme from M*A*S*H was usually played in instrumental form, and if not overly cheerful, it's at least a nice, relaxing tune. Then there are the lyrics, which are less so.
• The song "What a Difference a Day Makes" from Mongrels, a happy, melodious love duet about underage sex and statutory rape.
• The NCIS episode "Newborn King" is a Christmas Episode, so it's not too surprising that a Christmas Carol would be used... except it is while Ziva is gunning down several Russian mercenaries while Gibbs is the Delivery Guy for a female army lieutenant.
• Neighbours: The opening theme's lyrics are about neighbourly support and friendship, and while the show does explore such themes, it also necessarily thrives on common soap opera themes such as deception and betrayal. There have been a few incarnations of the tune over the show's long run — it was originally sung jovially by Barry Crocker — but all of them are upbeat.
• In Once Upon a Time, the episode "The Song in Your Heart" features a Villain Song, "Wicked Always Wins", sung by Zelena, in which she revels in the prospect of bringing down her sister (along with Prince Charming and Snow White). The dissonance comes in when the music is a cheerful, upbeat heroic musical theatre number — which, thanks to Rebecca Mader's bright, peppy vocals, sounds eerily like that of a Disney princess! This could be seen as an Affectionate Parody of Wicked.
• The theme song to Pretty Little Liars is the chorus of the song "Secret" by The Pierces. It's very catchy, but the lyrics are absolutely bone-chilling:
  Got a secret, can you keep it?
  Swear this one you'll save
  Better lock it in your pocket
  Takin' this one to the grave
  If I show you, then I know you won't tell what I said
  'Cause two can keep a secret if one of them is dead
• Red Dwarf:
  • The jaunty, upbeat theme: "It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere, I'm all alone, more or less..."
  • The song "Tongue Tied" is an upbeat pop song which graphically deconstructs the Cardiovascular Love trope.
• The Saturday Night Live sketch "This Is Not a Feminist Song" has the season 41 female cast members, and Ariana Grande, perform a stirring anthem about... the difficulty they experienced trying to write a stirring anthem about feminism. Fortunately, they decide in the last verse that by writing and singing the song without help from any men, they actually did make a feminist song.
• Sesame Street:
  • "Doctor, Please" has an upbeat tune, but it is about why the people and animals are at the doctor, and some of them are quite bad (such as, "this fever's got my goat").
  • "When Bert's Not Here" has a bouncy tune, but it has lyrics about how Ernie feels when he misses Bert that can be quite dark (e.g. "When Bert's not here, the hours last forever, the toys aren't fun and the cookies don't crunch / When Bert's not here, I don't feel so clever and I never even feel like having lunch").
  • Little Jerry's "Sad" song is about sadness, yet it has a jaunty doo-wop tune.
  • "Lead Police" talks about lead and how it can get in your body and make you sick and that it could be anywhere, but it's sung in a jaunty way.
  • "You Have to Be Patient to Be a Patient" is relatively upbeat-sounding, but its lyrics talk about staying in bed and resting.
• Mr. G's songs in Summer Heights High when he's trying to write an upbeat musical about a girl at the school who died from an ecstasy overdose.
  Annabelle Dickson
  When girls take drugs
  And then they die
  Who would have thought
  At Summer Heights High
  On days like these
  It's a Bummer Heights High
• In an episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, John Henry and Savannah sing the Scottish novelty song "Donald Where's Yer Troosers?". It's sung slowly and hauntingly over images of Sarah being arrested and Derek being buried.
• While intro song "Far from any Road" of the first season of the "True Detective" is very fitting mood-wise, from a geographical point of view it's quite confusing. The first season takes place in Lousiana, while the lyrics mention "dusty mesa", "rattlesnakes", and "poisionous creosote", which implies more Nevada/Arisona/Utah.
• Lampshaded in the Two and a Half Men episode "Chocolate Diddlers or My Puppy's Dead". Charlie is writing a jingle for a new cereal called Chocolate Diddlers. But he's depressed after a breakup, and composes a piece with bouncy lyrics and a somber melody. Alan points out that the music sounds like "my puppy's dead" and that he needs to make it more upbeat.
• Victorious does this from time to time:
  • "Freak the Freak Out" is a techno-pop, autotune, dance song about someone getting fed up with being ignored.
  • Robbie's song "Broken Glass" from the episode "The Diddly-Bops", where the gang tries to come up with a song to perform at a child's birthday party. It starts out innocently enough, but takes a bizarre turn.
    Robbie: It's fun to run, it's fun to play
    It's fun to make things out of clay
    It's fun to fill your car with gas
    It's fun to break... things made of glass
    But broken glass can cut your hand
    And then you'll bleed across the land
    Ask any—
    Tori: We're not doing that!
• Pretty much all the music-based games in Whose Line Is It Anyway? are built around this trope — except when it's Colin Mochrie trying to sing, then it's funny for a different reason. It even goes for some games that aren't — in one round of "Scenes From A Hat", Drew picked out "Professions where breaking into song is discouraged".
  Ryan: [in an upbeat, cheery tone] We're gonna fry you this morning, fry you this morning...
• Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger has "Yorokobi no Uta" (Song of Happiness), which is very much a Villain Song that Candelila first sings in Brave 6. Already there you can see that it's a bouncy J-Pop song that talks about Deboss destroying the world, but when she (in her human guise) sings it again in Brave 11, the lyrics go into further detail, exalting Deboss as Earth's true overlords and stating that all humans should be maimed and killed. All this in front of a crowd of adoring fans, while still sounding very much like a J-Pop song. You couldn't get a better musical representation of Sugar Apocalypse if you tried.

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