History LyricalDissonance / Folk

* Bill Staines' "Jubilee" is a happy little number describing a celebration long ago in (presumably) New Orleans. It's even managed to find its way onto an album of children's music. The lyrics, however, are written from the perspective of a group of hobos who showed up to make music (or at least try) with whatever objects they could find.

* The Music/GreatBigSea version of ''Captain Kidd'', about a notorious [[strike:English]] Scottish privateer, is very upbeat and cheerful. The song presents a (fictitious) account of the eponymous Kidd, wherein he is an ObviouslyEvil privateer captain who is a {{Jerkass}} to his dad, hates God, and kills people for fun. He tries to [[HeelFaceTurn turn over a new leaf]], but unfortunately, [[DeathEqualsRedemption death does NOT equal redemption]] for Kidd, and he is hanged. However, in the end, he [[GoOutWithASmile goes out with a smile]], warning others to behave, "or you'll wind up just like me!". The song is very catchy, by the way, as are a lot of [[FanNickname GBS]] songs.

** "Matalii ja Mustii" is about a town where the girls are ugly, the boys are stupid, and the children are presumably below average. The [[LazyBum lazy]], [[ReallyGetsAround experienced]], [[LadyDrunk alcoholic]] narrator is not impressed. This song was featured on the Arthur cartoon.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n0oNZL-YzFQ "Dumb Ways to Die,"]] produced for the Melbourne Metro, is a light, bouncy little tune, with a sweet-voiced mezzo lead. The title [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin tells you what it's about]].

* The Music/GreatBigSea version of ''Captain Kidd'', about a notorious [[strike:English]] Scottish privateer, is very upbeat and cheerful. The song presents a (fictitious) account of the eponymous Kidd, wherein he is an ObviouslyEvil privateer captain who is a {{Jerkass}} to his dad, hates God, and kills people for fun. He tries to [[HeelFaceTurn turn over a new leaf]], but unfortunately, [[DeathEqualsRedemption death does NOT equal redemption]] for Kidd, and he is hanged. However, in the end, he [[GoOutWithASmile goes out with a smile]], warning others to behave, "or you'll wind up just like me!". The song is a massive EarWorm, by the way, as are a lot of [[FanNickname GBS]] songs.

* Music/Damien Rice:

* Damien Rice:

* Mat Weddle's interpretation of "Hey Ya" as a folk song.
** Though as we see in the "Rap and Hip-Hop" section of this page, "Hey Ya"'s pessimistic lyrics about love and relationships are actually more suited to this kind of format. It's the ORIGINAL that has a large deal of dissonance between the lyrics and the music.

** "When You're Evil", anyone? It's basically a song about how much he loves to do evil things, set to a tango.

* "Amie" by Damien Rice. A cheerful song with swooping orchestrals...about a man trying to convince a young girl to sit on his garden wall and read him a pornographic novel.
** Also arguable for "Me My Yoke + I", which is a desperate, dark song about the joys of discovering masturbation.

** "Shasta", a nice cheerful upbeat song about a girl taking a wonderfully pleasant road trip up I-5 in order to visit an abortion clinic. Okie-dokey...
*** It can be seen as a song about the beginning of a new life though, one can even interpret it as a song about keeping the baby. The lyrics are fairly vague.
** And on the other end of the spectrum is "Now Three" - [[WordOfGod By her own admission]] this song is an anxious and nervous happy song.

* Finnish folk-pop group Music/Varttina; sometimes exemplify this trope, especially on their earlier albums, which feature dizzyingly chipper songs about unhappy marriages, villages full of idiots, and the general wretchedness of life.

* Finnish folk-pop group Värttinä sometimes exemplify this trope, especially on their earlier albums, which feature dizzyingly chipper songs about unhappy marriages, villages full of idiots, and the general wretchedness of life.

** Most of Voltaire's songs are like this. BRAINS! Is a swing-type music from ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' about Billy gathering brains for an evil meteor. And it was awesome.

** "Shasta", a nice cheerful upbeat song about a girl taking a wonderfully pleasant roadtrip up I-5 in order to visit an abortion clinic. Okie-dokey...
*** It can be seen as a song about the beginning of a new life though, one can even interprertet it as a song about keeping the baby. The lyrics are fairly vague.

* Paul Kelly's rock song "How to Make Gravy" is a regretful song that takes the form of a letter written by a man who's in prison, to his brother. The narrator talks about the assorted members of his family, throws in tips for making the gravy that he normally makes, but it's completely heartbreaking when he talks about how it's nearly Christmas, and he won't be there to see his family- especially with the the line "Won't you kiss my kids on Christmas Day? Please don't let them cry for me."

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J11mJ29jZEg "Chane Ke Khet Mein"]] from the UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} movie ''{{Anjaam}}''. The song lyrics are about a rape, but the song is very upbeat and sung ''at a wedding!'' It could be interpreted as being about a "rape fantasy" scenario or an instance of rough albeit consensual sex in a chickpea field, but still...
* Bruce Cockburn's "Dancing In Paradise." Mellow, relaxing music, and the chorus is simply, "There's dancing in paradise . . . dancing in paradise..." However, Cockburn wrote the song in Jamaica and the verses are used to graphically describe the violence, poverty and corruption he saw there.
* Zig-zagged in the 60s song "Red Rubber Ball", covered by various artists (written by Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley), has a very upbeat tune with lyrics about a guy who got ditched by his girl. The guy is fine about this ("The worst is over now, the morning sun is shining like a [[TitleDrop red rubber ball]]..."), but half of the song is a rant about how bad the girl treats him. ("The roller coaster ride we took is nearing to an end, I bought my ticket with my tears, that's all I'm gonna spend,")

-->Raping mothers, wives and daughters in an all consuming rage

* Music/SteamPoweredGiraffe's "Fire Fire" combines the band's catchy upbeat family friendly musical style with a tragic tale of people ''burning to death in a spaceship''. In contrast, David Michael Bennett's solo performance of the same song plays the lyric heartbreakingly straight.

** Slashdot's unofficial anthem, "Code Monkey", is about a programmer who doesn't leave his crap job only to have a chance to see and chat with a secretary girl who won't even accept small gifts from him. It's also an another fine example of Coulton's love of shifting the focus back and forth [[MindScrew to screw with people's minds]].

* The 1967 song "Sunday Will Never Be The Same" by Spanky and Our Gang has a upbeat tune with beautiful harmonies, but the lyrics describe how breaking up with her lover has forever destroyed the singer's enjoyment of Sunday morning walks in the park.

* "Wild World" by Cat Stevens (and [[CoveredUp by several artistes since]]) is a cheery little number about a parent warning his/her daughter, who's about to leave home, of all the dangers she faces out there.

** Simon and Garfunkel are masters of this trope. "Richard Cory" is about a wealthy, successful businessman committing suicide. "A poem on an underground wall" is about someone writing the F word on a subway station wall. "A most peculiar man" is about yet another suicide, and ends with the lines "All the people said 'What a shame that he's dead, but wasn't he a most peculiar man?'" And yet, for some reason, everyone associates the duo with uncompromised, naive idealism.

* One of the biggest crowd-pleasing numbers of Music/HarryChapin was "30,000 Pounds of Bananas", which tells, with jaunty high energy, the true story of a truck driver transporting the titular fruit to Scranton, Pennsylvania who crashes and dies horribly. He originally composed it at a more meditative piece, but when it emerged that the song was funny, he sped it up, and added a section where he riffed on his difficulties in writing a satisfactory end to the song. This didn't sit well with the trucker's widow, and it was agreed that ''Bananas'' would never be performed in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

* "The Foggy Dew": Very pretty song with downright bloodthirsty lyrics about the Easter Rising. "The night fell black, and the rifles's crack/Made Perfidious Albion reel/In the leaden rain/Seven tongues of flame shone out o'er the lines of steel/And by each blade, a prayer was said/That to Ireland her sons be true/And when the dawn broke/still the war flag shook out its folds in the foggy dew."

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6qSuoUPGEA "Weile Weile Waile"]] by the Dubliners. Upbeat tune? Check. Happy children for the background vocals? Check. Infanticide and execution? Check.

* SteamPoweredGiraffe's ''Fire Fire'' combines the band's catchy upbeat family friendly musical style with a tragic tale of people ''burning to death in a spaceship''. In contrast, David Michael Bennett's solo performance of the same song plays the lyric heartbreakingly straight.

* StanRogers loves these kinds of songs:

*** "Big Dick Farts A Polka," a song InTheStyleOf PaulAndStorm, about Rich Wocjinski, "Big Dick to his friends, who despite his name is famous for what issues from his ass."

* TheMountainGoats are masters of this trope. "No Children" is kind of upbeat and perky — you could almost dance a jig to it — even though it has some of the nastiest, most spiteful lyrics ever committed to music. "Dance Music" is about stalking a girl and watching your parents' marriage fall apart, but the tune is similarly happy.

* [[DonMcLean Don "It Means I Never Have To Work Again" McLean's]] "Primetime". The music sounds pretty upbeat. The lyrics...

* African-American folk singer Lead Belly's song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46h56pidCiE Cotton Fields]], [[CoveredUp later made popular by]] {{Music/The Beach Boys}}' and {{Music/Creedence Clearwater Revival}}'s covers, is a upbeat, jaunting ditty about the hardships and poverty faced by the black cotton farmers in the American south.