Lyrical Dissonance / Web Original

• Pretty much the entire premise behind Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog:
  It's a brand new day
  And the sun is high
  All the birds are singin'
  That you're gonna die!
  • Or "Everything You Ever", which has triumphant lyrics and a tune more in line with a funeral dirge.
  "Here lies everything
  The world I wanted at my feet
  My victory's complete
  So hail to the king..."
  • And we can't forget "Everyone's A Hero" as sung by Nathan Fillion in full Large Ham mode:
  Everyone's a hero in their own way
  You and you and mostly me and you
  I'm poverty's new sheriff
  And I'm bashing in the slums
  A hero doesn't care if you're a bunch of scary, alcoholic bums!
• The Angry Video Game Nerd's theme song, by Kyle Justin. It's an uptempo song about how much James Rolfe hates the video games he has to review.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series has the cheery theme song for the sitcom within the show Zorc & Pals:
  The blood of the innocent will flow without end
  His name is Zorc and he's destroying the world!
• From The Slender Man Mythos, we have Slendy's Watching Me. It's a cute, upbeat song about a child being kidnapped by the Slender Man.
• Despite being one of the most upbeat numbers in Human Centipede: The Musical, Dr. Heiter's Villain Song depicts Body Horror.
• The theme song of The Spoony Experiment, "Break Me" by The Irresponsibles. While being a rousing piece of Crowning Music of Awesome, it has rather dark lyrics you might notice on first hearing it. Lampshaded by Spoony in a commentary where he said he loved the song but it was "basically implying that I'm a girl who likes to be domestically abused."
• Zigzagged in one episode of Jim and Yahtzee's Rhymedown Spectacular, Yahtzee described "Ludonarrative Dissonance" by alternating between saying a poem about a man who tried to flee life of crime and violence only to go broke and be forced to return, and singing a merry, excited tune about the same man enjoying living a life of crime and violence.
• brentalfloss does a lyric video for Limbo. The tune he provides is an actual limbo song and he sings about the multiple ways you can die as the protagonist.
• Played with in "The Gypsy Bard" from Friendship is Witchcraft, a song about depression, having your life destroyed, and staying strong through music. Lampshaded by Applejack.

  [Pinkie offers to sing a song.]

  Applejack: Doesn't matter which one, Pinkie. As long as it's not one of those sad ones with the deceptively happy tunes-

  Pinkie: When you're rife with devastation, there's a simple explanation: / You're a toymaker's creation, trapped inside a crystal ball.

  • She tends to do this a lot. "The Orphanage Song" is about her attempts to remain optimistic despite being, well, orphaned and massive self-loathing. "Pinkie's Brew" starts off as a cheerful, bouncy song about potion-brewing, but soon becomes about her desperate loneliness and alienation, and desire to bring her dead parents back to life. She's had a hard life...
  Crude stew. Do you fear it, Apple Bloom? / Sometimes life is not a cake-walk served up on a silver spoon.
  God help the outcast with her witchcraft. / Someday I'm gonna go home.
• hunter1s1k covers any song by doing agonizing screams. Even songs that aren't anything agonizing.
• To Boldly Flee has We're a Distraction, the number one song on Krypton from 1983. The tune is standard dramatic-but-upbeat '80s power ballad. The lyrics are about how the world is going to end soon, so you might as well try and be happy in the short time you have left to take your mind off things.
  • Actually, Word of God says that that's an interpretation that has nothing to do with what they intended.
• Cracked's The 5 Most Insane Teams in the History of Sports describes an incident in the 1990s when the Canadian Football League was attempting to expand into the United States. At one game, the Canadian national anthem was sung to the tune of "O Christmas Tree".
• The Dropout video "Honest Holiday Card Song". The faces on the card photos sing a ridiculously upbeat melody about all of the various problems they are struggling with, like estranged marriages, struggling with obesity, losing one's job, etc.
• FilmCow's musical short, "Ferrets".
  Unnamed Ferret: These are all the little things that make me smile, these are all the stuff that makes life worthwhile! Everybody knows the Holocaust was a lie, so let's sing about the things we like and don't be shy!
  Harold: ...wait, what was that about the Holocaust?
• Some of Paint's parodies qualify on this, such as his most famous "After Ever After" songs recounts the depressing and/or disturbing future of several Disney Princesses to the tune of some of their movies' famous songs.
• Rhett & Link:
  • In the Good Mythical Morning guest starring Linkin Park, this song plays as they eat Sour Patch Kids. A tinkling, music-box melody...about the acid from the candy burning the skin from your mouth.
  • "Get You Back" is a soft song about revenge.
  • There's a song about squirrels which has a "squirrely" feel but portrays their anger about being shown all over the Web without giving consent first.
• Undertale the Musical:
  • "Ghost Fight", an upbeat, energetic jazz number about how miserable Napstablook is. Although the lyrics start matching the tune after Frisk hugs the poor ghost.
  • "Your Best Friend", Flowey's Villain Song. Fitting his general character, it sounds like something from Barney or other kid's show...but has lyrics about his twisted worldview and how he wants to murder the protagonist. The latter reprise qualifies even more so, as he completely drops all pretense of benevolence and is entirely about his evil intentions.
  • Flowey maintains this when he becomes Omega Flowey and sings "Your Best Nightmare", keeping the same style of singing while singing about his murderous intentions to murder Frisk over and over and become a God.
• Tumblr repurposed the tune from the classic Christmas song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" to tell a musical version of the scene in Macbeth when Lady Macbeth talks her Villain Protagonist husband into killing the king. (Note that due to Values Dissonance, even the original song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" can retroactively come off as this trope to modern listeners, who often consider the male singer to be uncomfortably predatory. But of course, that wasn't the intent with which the song was written back in The '40s.)
• Twisted Translations repurposes the original melodies of the songs that are run through Google Translate. Resulting in lyrics that really do not suit the melody or style of the original music.
• Rathergood's "Communist Christmas" sounds like a standard Christmas Song, complete with Snowy Sleigh Bells, but every other line is about communism. In the chorus, the communist cat cheerfully sings about celebrating and purging the enemies of the state.
• The Melodicka Bros are specialized in weird covers of songs. This include gems like a sad version of Aqua's "Barbie Girl" or a happy version of Papa Roach's "Last Resort".
• The "Dancing Polish Cow". Put to a goofy poorly-dithered gif of a cow dancing a jig, and when listened to by most it's pretty silly. However if you speak Polish that song, called Gdzie jest biały węgorz? (Zejście), has among the most depressing lyrics you'll ever hear in your life.
• Kevin Temmer’s What’s the Matter, Martha? is an upbeat tune sung by cheerful sentient objects to a woman who’s (according to Word of God) disillusioned with her restrictive life. As the song goes on, the lyrics begin to contrast with the happy melody.
  Could it be, could it be
  Life is just not quite what it’s cracked up to be?
  Could it be, could it be
  You broke your mind and didn’t get the warranty?
  Could it be, could it be
  You never read the fine print on conformity?
  Give us a clue
  What’s wrong with you?

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