History LyricalDissonance / Music

* The Music/BoomtownRats's "I Don't Like Mondays" is an upbeat, peppy song... about a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer school shooting]].
** To be fair, the song doesn't sound that upbeat, and the last verse is a dead giveaway of the subject matter. However, Diamond Smiles, from the same album, is an upbeat song about a woman who goes to a party and hangs herself.
* "People Who Died" by the Jim Carroll Band -- a song about people dying too young and in horrible ways, set to music that Chuck Berry could have written.
* "Girls on Film" by Music/DuranDuran. A catchy, poppy tune about porn stars.
** To be fair, if you don't think too hard about the lyrics it's easy to assume it's about modeling.
*** The video further bolsters the "travails of modeling" (mis)interpretation.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvogQomSzc "Victim of Love"]] is a song about [[LoveHurts somebody who's been hurt so much by the people he loved that he's becoming apprehensive about entering another relationship.]] Not so happy subject, but the song sounds so optimistic and, quite honestly, danceable.
** The whole album (''The Circus'') is full of lyrical dissonance. "Leave Me To Bleed" is actually quite danceable.
*** And what about earlier hit [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFduy8qQIOg "Oh L'amour"]]? People get up and dance to that killer beat and shiny, poppy synth, only to hear verses like this:
-->No emotional ties
-->You don't remember my name
-->I lay down and die
-->I'm only to blame
* Joe Jackson's "Be My Number Two" is similar - tender love-ballad melody, lyrics about how he wants a pliable girlfriend to comfort him after breaking up with a {{Tsundere}}. "''Every time I look at you / You'll be who I want you to."'' At least the singer admits that ''"it's really not fair of me."''
* "99 Luftballons" / "99 Red Balloons" by Nena is a (mostly) perky-sounding pop song about the titular 99 balloons accidentally starting WorldWarIII.
** Worse than that, a nuclear freaking HOLOCAUST.
** It was a popular dance song in countries that did not traditionally speak German, which led to a lot of jaws dropping when they [[BilingualBonus realized what the lyrics actually meant]]. Subsequently, an English version was released that wasn't as popular.
* Oingo Boingo's "Little Girls". Written and sung by none other than Danny Elfman, it is an insanely catchy, peppy rock song sung from the point of view of a pedophile.
** It takes effort to find a Boingo song that DOESN'T make extensive use of lyrical dissonance. Upbeat music with dark themes is one of their specialties.
* [[TheEighties Eighties]] legends Music/TalkingHeads also did a lot of these. Their lyrical style usually leads the careless listener to assume that the band is trying to put across a positive message; one must pay close attention to the lyrics to see the songs' true nature.
** The cheerful melody of "Don't Worry About The Government" counterpoints the lyrics, which sound similarly cheerful – until you realize how intentionally, sarcastically inane they are.
** "Road To Nowhere", which implies that the inevitable death of everybody who's ever been born isn't such a depressing thing after all.
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX6FsTIq6ls Psycho Killer]]", which dramatizes the title character's neuroses amid chunky guitar riffs. Not your typical pop song material.
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzORu1dqEE0&t=12s Life During Wartime]]", a song about a cynic living during a violent revolution, set to a very funky beat.
** To say nothing about "[[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSpAOD6K8 Once in a Lifetime]]", being from the perspective of a man who's fully imbursed himself in UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream, only to realize it's not all it's cracked up to be, until the pressure (represented by water) pulling down on him makes him shout, "MyGodWhatHaveIDone"
* Ultravox - "Dancing With Tears in My Eyes". An upbeat New Wave dance tune about [[WhileRomeBurns one's last moments during a nuclear war]].
** Actually, in the music video it's a [[GoingCritical nuclear power station meltdown]]. Still no less tragic, though.
* Intaferon's "Steamhammer Sam" is an upbeat honky-tonk/rock fusion song about the plight of the many blue-collar workers in Britain left unemployed in the '80s by Margaret Thatcher's economic policies. "Steamhammer Sam sits in the park all day and he gets drunk, watching the children play, he's very sad, no happy ending 'cause he went mad..."
* "Attack of the Giant Ants" by Music/{{Blondie}}. Lyrics concerning humanity being wiped out by a HordeOfAlienLocusts? Check. Upbeat salsa/pop melody? Check. Enough said.
** Ever really listen to the lyrics of [[StalkerWithACrush "One Way or Another"]]? The melody is somewhat less cheery than the standard, but it's still fairly upbeat for a song where a woman pretty much swears to stalk the guy she likes forever.

* Music/TheB52's "Legal Tender". A song about counterfeiting in the typical tune of the B-52s.

* Music/BobbyDarin's "Artificial Flowers". A Perry Como-esque upbeat jazz song, with lyrics about an orphan making flowers in a tenement and then freezing to death.
%%** There's also "Mack the Knife", but to a lesser extent. (Administrivia/ZeroContextExample)

* The Brazilian group Os Paralamas do Sucesso has songs like that as well, depicting [[CrapsackWorld the poverty and hopelessness of Brazilian low-class people]] with happy, upbeat melodies. An example is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfi9K97ulmE "Alagados"]] (lit. "Flooded", [[http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/noticias/2002/021125_alagadosrg.shtml named after a slum]]), which speaks about [[WrongSideofTheTracks the hard life conditions in the favelas]] ("The city, with its open arms in the postcards and its tightened fist in real life, denies you opportunities and shows you the face of evil."). And the Spanish version keeps the message.
* Listen to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvTrNkMW0uo "Fumaza"]] by Los Pinguos. Doesn't it just make you want to dance? Read [[http://www.lospinguos.com/texto-fumaza-english.html this translation of the lyrics]]. Doesn't it just make you want to cry?
* Maná and Music/{{Santana}}'s joint effort song "Corazon Espinado", a smooth salsa/guitar jam about a really painful break-up, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psedJqNC-e4 as the "Spanglish" version makes somewhat clearer for English speakers]]:
-->''Como me duele el olvido'' (how it hurts to be forgotten)\\

Como me duele estar vivo (how it hurts to be alive)\\
Coz I can't stand this pain no more
* Chilean rock group Los Prisioneros was extremely good at this before their DorkAge and separation. Some of their best examples are:
** "We are Southamerican rockers": a song about beleaguered and unsuccessful rock singers, set to upbeat rhythms;
** "Latinoamérica es un pueblo al sur de Estados Unidos": cheerful ska tunes about Latin America's dependence on the USA;
** "¿Por qué los ricos?": cheery beats describing the complaints of poor people about the rich;
** "Maldito sudaca": a rockish song that denounces the xenophobia towards Latinamericans - 'sudaca' is a very offensive Spaniard term to refer to people coming from Latin America;
** "Sexo": cheerful-sounding, but very sarcastic song [[SexSells about media and sexuality]];
** "Nunca quedas mal con nadie", an upbeat ska-like song about supposedly progressive singers that sell themselves to the mainstream (apparently inspired by a specific Chilean singer of TheEighties, but don't ask who);
** "El baile de los que sobran", rock song with TearJerker lyrics about lower-class people who can't go to college and ascend socially due to lack of money and opportunities.
** "Paramar", which has an unusually poppy sound for this group... and it's all about how much LoveHurts.
* The late Colombian salsa singer and songwriter Joe Arroyo had a song about how in colonial Cartagena de Indias a black slave rose against (and probably killed) his owner because the latter mistreated the slave's wife. Said song, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWvNtNOhGjM Rebelión]]" is incredibly catchy and upbeat sounding.
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k75Ojid7IA Tropicana]]" by Italian band Gruppo Italiano (a name which, incidentally, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin means exactly that]]) is an upbeat calypso number... about a dream wherein a tropical island is destroyed by atomic explosions, hurricanes, fires and so on.
* Javiera y los Imposibles's song "Te amo tanto" ("I love you so!") has super child-like and poppy beats... and lyrics about a girl who laments the suicide of her boyfriend.
* Juanes's ''La Paga'' (The Pay) sounds pretty upbeat for a song about a guy has just found out that, despite his efforts to make his girlfriend happy, she never really loved him.
* This trope is the problem with salsa singers of the Fania school (read, the salsa style of TheSeventies and early [[TheEighties Eighties]]) when they go for more "socially relevant" and introspective songs. The lyrics may be {{Tear Jerker}}s and the music may sound genuinely sad, but the fact is that they are composed to be danced with, and dance with them is what people do. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCv7e_TNTnY Discoesque song about the plastic superficiality of people]]? The BasedOnATrueStory version of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtjLNTJbBKQ the last moments of a priest before its politically motivated murder]]? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0bOwviSGv8 The singer finding Jesus in the middle of a party]]? [[SadClown The melancholy of being an entertainer]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uagxHHVMobY in salsa version]]?
** Of all this generation, Ruben Blades (who composed most of the songs above) hits the dissonance even worse. Because he can be very political and philosophical on his songwriting, he gets in the strange territory of having lyrics who need and inspire reflection, attached to music who gets in the way of that. A big example is his song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgai9QXubE4 Pedro Navaja]]" (was influenced by Mack The Knife), which tells the story about a feared criminal and a StreetWalker who [[MutualKill kill each other.]]

[[folder:Marches]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca2hX6OYKh8 This]] video covers ''Aupres de ma Blonde'', an 18th-century march about a French woman who laments about her husband's capture by the Dutch, with all the cheeriness of a NurseryRhyme (which the series it is part of covers).
[[/folder]]

* ''Theatre/AvenueQ''. All of it. The musical styles you loved on ''Series/SesameStreet'', applied to topics like racism and pornography!
** {{Lampshaded}} in "It Sucks To Be Me":
--->'''Christmas Eve:''' Why you all so happy? [sic]
--->'''Nicky:''' Because our lives suck!
** [-'''Brian:''' What are you laughing about?-]
---> '''Gary:''' Racism!
---> '''Brian:''' Cool!
* ''Film/TheProducers'' opens with everyone leaving a musical and then singing a joyful, sensational song about how god awful it was.
** Depending on which version you watch, you get a different kind of campy tune...[[CrossingTheLineTwice sung by]] [[SpringtimeForHitler Hitler]].
* "Die Moritat vom Mackie Messer/Mack the Knife" -- especially the Bobby Darin version. A swinging, catchy, toe-tapping pop standard about a murderer, kidnapper, arsonist, thief, rapist, etc., who can't be beat. That said, the lyrics were often sanitized in some translations... it is much nastier in the original German version, generally, than say the Blitzstein lyrics. That said, "Mack the Knife" is ''still'' an awesome song.
** Among other things, you can blame Ella Fitzgerald (or credit her) for toning down the song; she admitted that she forgot half the lyrics and scatted the missing portions.
** Several other songs from ''The Threepenny Opera'' have similar lyrical dissonances. There is one song where the frequent refrain of "Yay! Hooray!" is performed in as deadpan and monotone a manner possible.
*** "Hoch sollen sie leben! Hoch hoch hoch!"
** Brecht in general depended on Lyrical Dissonance in his music in other plays. For instance, in ''Theatre/MotherCourageAndHerChildren'', there is a lullaby that Mother Courage sings over [[spoiler: her daughter Kattrin's dead body]], with lyrics of an obviously materialistic nature. This sort of thing is key to ''verfremdungseffekt'' of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_theatre Epic Theatre]].
* "I'm Calm" from the musical ''Theatre/AFunnyThingHappenedOnTheWayToTheForum''.
* "Hey Big Spender," from ''Sweet Charity,'' sounds like an erotic come-on ("Good lookin', so refined/So wouldn't you like to know what's goin' on in my mind?"), but is sung by a group of bored taxi dance girls who can barely summon up the energy to go through the motions of their job.
* Freddy Cole once sang an upbeat version of "Send in the Clowns," telling a radio interviewer that no one else had done it. He didn't seem to understand why no one else had done it.
* Almost all the music in the musical ''Theatre/LittleShopOfHorrors'' is lathered with lyrical dissonance. The best example is the show's opening title. Three Motown-style singers dance and sing to the fun, bouncy, rock n' roll prologue - about the end of the world. The lyrics, though sometimes silly with words like "shang-a-lang" and "bop sh'bob" throughout, is actually a warning to the audience about the foreboding terror that is the man-eating plant, Audrey 2: "You better, tellin' you, you better // Tell your mama somethin's gonna get her // She better, ev'rybody better // Beware!"
** The entire musical follows in this perky rock n' roll styled music, even when the subjects of the songs are depressing and/or disturbing: the pessimistic view of living in the city ("Skid Row"), the sadistic and cruel nature of a dentist ("Dentist!"), death through loss of oxygen ("Now (It's Just The Gas)"), or an alien plant's need to eat humans to survive ("Suppertime", "Feed Me (Git It)").
* [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1loyjm4SOa0 "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"]] by Monty Python could be taken either as disguised sarcasm (as in ''Life of Brian'', where it's sung by guys who are being ''crucified''), or as a slightly fractured inspirational song (as in ''Spamalot'', the musical adaptation of ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'').
** Add to that "Brave Sir Robin" from ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' and the musical ''Spamalot'', in which Sir Robin's bard sings a cheery, Renaissance-sounding tune about Sir Robin getting horribly mutilated in battle. "His nostrils raped and his bottom burned off", indeed.
* Music/StephenSondheim loves this trope about as much as Creator/GilbertAndSullivan did. ''Theatre/{{Assassins}}'' in particular has "Unworthy of Your Love" (what sounds like a tender love duet... except that the singers are Squeaky Fromme and John Hinckley, Jr., talking about how they will prove their love for (respectively) Charles Manson and Jodie Foster by shooting the president), and "The Ballad of Czolgosz" (an upbeat, patriotic-sounding turn-of-the-century style song about how you can "move to the head of the line" in the US -- as Leon Czolgosz is waiting in a line of people to shake [=McKinley=]'s hand, ending with Czolgosz shooting him).
** Don't forget "The Ballad of Guiteau", which is not only a happy song about a guy who shoots the President (featuring tap-dancing on the gallows, no less), but it was ''written by the actual assassin''. Creepy.
*** Especially creepy considering that before he read it to the crowd at the gallows, he said this about his words: "If set to music, they may be rendered very effective."
** "Everybody's Got the Right" from ''Assassins'' is another fantastic example. The lyrics read almost like something that might be read in an elementary school classroom, that everyone has the right to find happiness- except the song is about madmen ''defending their right to kill the president.''
** "A Little Priest", from ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet''. It's a fun, showstopping, and, especially in the original stage musical, humorous number... about cannibalism.
*** Ah yes, ''Sweeney Todd''. With such numbers as "A Little Priest" above and the reprise of "Johanna", a rather upbeat number in major key about how the VillainProtagonist is too busy killing people to think about his own daughter.
* Andrew Lloyd Webber's ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' includes an example of this in the perfectly happy-sounding tune of "Masquerade". Once you realise what it's actually talking about (pay attention to the words, not the tune), you can get rather depressed.
--> 'Masquerade! Paper faces on parade! Masquerade! Hide your face so the world will never find you!'
** Highlighted at the end of the play, when the Phantom [[DarkReprise sings a slow, sad version of the chorus]].
* "I Dreamed a Dream" from ''Theatre/LesMiserables'' is a song about crushed hopes and dreams set to the most beautiful, uplifting, triumphant music imaginable.
** Made even more dissonant now that Susan Boyle sang it to make her own dream come true.
** It's [[MoodWhiplash immediately followed]] (in the stage version; the movie switches them around) by "Lovely Ladies," another example of this trope as it's a bouncy, upbeat song about the horrors of prostitution, including poverty, venereal disease and having to sleep with "harbor rats and alley cats and every kind of scum" in order to eke out a living.
** Another example from Les Mis: There's this one song that has a beautiful, soaring melody and heavenly-sounding accompaniment. The song is "Stars" and Javert sings it. The lyrics are ... KnightTemplar-y, for lack of a better word. Some of the lyrics: "[[KnightTemplar And so it must be, for so it is written, on the doorway to Paradise, that those who falter and those who fall must pay the price.]] [[SternChase Lord, let me find him (Jean Valjean), that I may see him safe behind bars. I will never rest, 'til then, this I swear, this I swear by the stars!]]"
* Creator/GilbertAndSullivan are ''all'' over this.
** ''Theatre/TrialByJury'' -- This one's about a trial, so when the plaintiff arrives at the tune of "Comes the broken flower / Comes the cheated maid", it's made catchy, upbeat and fun, to make it thoroughly clear that despite said lyrics, this is all part of a grand scam.
** ''Theatre/TheSorcerer'' has a bawdy drinking song about tea, then later we get the song "Oh joyous boon / Oh mad delight" -- which is appropriately upbeat -- and continues upbeat through lyrics like "Alas! that lovers thus should meet:/ Oh, pity, pity me!"
** '''Theatre/HMSPinafore:'' As the protagonist works himself up to suicide in the Act I finale, all sorts of cheery and patriotic tunes get thrown in, even while Ralph sings, "The maiden treats my suit with scorn,/Rejects my humble gift, my lady;/She says I am ignobly born,/And cuts my hopes adrift, my lady." Of course, it eventually turns appropriately sombre, just in time for Josephine to rush in and admit she loves him after all.
** ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance'': The loudest song in the entire operetta is the one about sneaking quietly into the Stanley home:
--> ''WithCatlikeTread\\
Upon our prey we steal\\
In silence dread\\
Our cautious way we feel\\
[[BlatantLies No sound at all]]\\
We never speak a word\\
A fly's foot-fall\\
Would be distinctly heard.''
*** Sung ''fortissimo'' with heavy use of cymbals and brass in the accompaniment.
** ''Theatre/{{Iolanthe}}'': Parts of the Act I finale, but also "In vain to us you plead", which is a flirty little song about how much the women hate the men they're singing it to.
*** Part of the joke is that they're in love with the men, but have to do their duty in telling them to buzz off. Lelia's line before the song is: "But we can't stop him now. (''Aside to Celia''.) Aren't they lovely! (''Aloud''.) Oh, why did you go and defy us, you great geese!"
** ''Theatre/PrincessIda:'' [[http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/princess_ida/webop/pi_24.html "When Anger Spreads Its Wing"]] is about going off to war but sounds kind of like it should be about Bertie Wooster and his smashing adventures.
** ''Theatre/TheMikado''. Beheadings, descriptions of grisly executions, lists of people to kill off -- all fodder for a cheery little operetta. The first song in the second half, "Brightly dawns our wedding day/Joyous hour we give thee greeting" ends with everyone in tears (though there is a good reason for that).
** ''Theatre/{{Ruddigore}}'': "I Shipped D'ye See" is a cheery patriotic naval ballad about fleeing from the French. "Happily coupled are we" has a cheery melody befitting a song by a sailor about his forthcoming marital bliss. It keeps this melody when Rose comes in with her verse, about him sailing off and having affairs with women in every port, while she's left behind to wait for him. Oh, and another cheery song about upcoming death, this time the rapid-fire patter song, "My eyes are fully open" (First verse ends "But I have to die tomorrow, so it really doesn't matter!") Oh, and I'm not sure if it counts, but the lyrics of "You understand? I think I do" is about how horrible it is to have to betray Robin's secret identity, but duty requires it. However, doing so lets one of them steal back a woman from Robin, and gets the other out of the family curse, so the cheery, bouncy music is actually highly appropriate.
** ''Theatre/TheYeomenOfTheGuard:'' "How say you, maiden, will you wed/A man about to lose his head?" is, as you should guess by now, one of the most upbeat, fun, cheery numbers. Meanwhile, "Oh, a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon", of course, turns out to be about how the jester's being torn apart and has to remain cheerful throughout it all. Later, "When a wooer goes a-wooing"'s most heartbreaking line is "Oh the happy days of wooing" -- sung in emotionless monotone by the person that the plot has set out to break, taking everything from him. Oh, and it ends on a grand, energetic chorus [[spoiler:while that person dies]].
** ''Theatre/UtopiaLimited'': "First You're Born" is about how a character's life is one big joke played on him by the universe. It's done as a comic number. "A tenor, all singers above" is a classic tenor ballad -- about how the tenor can't sing, complete with intentionally flubbed high notes. Oh, and "It's understood, I think all round" and "In every mental lore" are both cheery songs with lines about grisly deaths (by duelling and being blown up by dynamite, respectively), but do I really need to mention that at this point?
** ''Theatre/TheGrandDuke'': "Won't It Be a Pretty Wedding" savages the bride's taste and sense of fashion, and then everyone goes on to savage the groom in "Pretty Lisa, fair and tasty". Several other examples, which would take too long to explain.
** OlderThanRadio: Sullivan also tends to drop down to a lower note for words like "high", "top", "above" and so on, and vice-versa for words like "bottom" and "low".
*** That might have something to do with the fact that G&S's genre is called "Topsy-Turvy" (also the title of a movie about them.)
* At least half of ''Theatre/SpringAwakening'', although "My Junk" is a really cute upbeat song about masturbation and about comparing teenage crushes to drug addiction, which is arguably even more lyrically dissonant.
* "Get Happy," popularized by Creator/JudyGarland in the film ''Summer Stock'', is a peppy, rousing song about Judgment Day.
* The song "Three-Five-Zero-Zero" from the musical ''Theatre/{{Hair}}'' has a verse that's an example of this. These words are sung to a cheery tune best described as "Dixieland". The meaning of the title? There were 3500 men in the first platoon of soldiers sent to Vietnam. Two out of every three were black. Offensive lyrics are spoilered:
-->Pris'ners in [[spoiler: Niggertown]], it's a dirty little war
-->Three-five-zero-zero
-->Take weapons up and begin to kill
-->Watch the long long armies drifting home
* ''Theatre/{{Urinetown}}'' is all over this trope. They even hang a lampshade on it:
--> '''Little Sally''': What kind of musical is this? The good guys finally take over, and then everything starts falling apart?
--> '''Officer Lockstock''': Like I said, Little Sally, this isn't a happy musical.
--> '''Little Sally''': But the music's so happy!
* "Shy" from ''Once Upon a Mattress'' features the heroine describing how demure and bashful she is...while belting practically the entire song at the top of her lungs.
** "Sensitivity," from the same musical, is the rather ironic song by the queen, who is anything ''but'' sensitive - but the off-kilter and jerky five-beat pattern is not very sensitive either.
* "I Want More" from ''LestatTheMusical'', Claudia's first song. Quite possibly the most cheerful song in the show, all about drinking people's blood...
* The obscure musical ''Fade Out Fade In'' has the song "You Mustn't Feel Discouraged," which ''[[LyricalDissonance sounds]]'' congenially cheerful, especially when it accompanies a playful tap-dance routine, but here's how the lyrics go:
-->"When you think you've hit the bottom,\\
And you're feeling mighty low,\\
You mustn't feel discouraged--\\
There's always one step further down you can go."
** A video of it can be found [[https://youtu.be/b5wR39Jevh4 here]]
* "Relax, Enjoy Yourself" from Randy Newman's ''Theatre/{{Faust}}''. Has several sections: 1. Nice upbeat song about how no one ever succeeds; 2. Less upbeat interlude with a little girl singing about evil; 3. Nice upbeat song about how the man who shot her will go to heaven because he went to confession; 4. Hymn about how God works in mysterious ways, and that she should be happy for the man who shot her; 5. Nice upbeat song about how Satan will take over the world and it'll be a good thing.
* "It Depends on What You Pay" from ''Theatre/TheFantasticks'' is an upbeat, Disneyesque number about [[HaveAGayOldTime "RAAAAAAPE"]]. Unsurprisingly, it isn't normally included in productions of the show.
* "Un Matin Tu Dansais", from the French rock opera of ''Theatre/NotreDameDeParis'', is a duet that starts off with a beautiful, longing melody as Frollo describes to Esmeralda how he first fell in love with her, and then she sings of how Phoebus will save her (she's currently in a cage, condemned to die). Then the song strays toward much darker territory as he makes her an offer: love him and he'll save her. Yet as it goes from devotion to blackmail to attempted rape, the tune stays that same light, lovely melody, with only the desperation and fear in the actor's voices to reveal that they're really singing things like "choose the grave or my bed" and "I'll bite you like a dog".
* [[Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera2004 Learn to Be Lonely]], on the surface, doesn't sound like a very sad song - at times, it even borders on triumphant - until you realize that it's [[TearJerker about coming to terms with being alone in the world and the fact that no one will ever love you]].
--> Never dream out in the world there are arms to hold you
--> You've always known your heart was on its own
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwM-toAsrvs Cute Boys with Short Haircuts]]" from ''Vanities'' is a cheerful, Disney-style AwardBaitSong about Kathy [[BreakupSong losing the only love of her life]].
* ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' has an interesting example. Elphaba sings triumphantly about a vision she has about a "celebration throughout Oz, that's all to do with me!" Anyone familiar with the Wizard of Oz will realize she's [[TearJerker seeing the celebration of her death.]]
** Also from Wicked: a cheery sounding song with such lyrics as "my pulse is rushing, my head is reeling, my face is flushing; what is this feeling?" At this point, one might guess that the feeling is love, but the girls are actually singing about their "unadulterated loathing" for everything about one another.
** ''Thank Goodness'', initially sounds like a happy tune about Galinda's dreams coming true until you realize that she is singing about how her life is now empty because she has lost her only friend and has nothing left to aspire to.
* ''Theatre/{{Rigoletto}}'': ''La dona e mobile'' has one of the most upbeat tunes in opera and as such gets used in a number of advertisements. The title means "The women are fickle", and the song is sung by the opera's BigBad; it's about how all women want him, but change their minds when ''he's'' ready for them, so his taking them by force is ''completely'' fine!
* "Far From the Home I Love" from ''Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof'' is a sad song in which Hodel is lamenting the fact that she is moving far away from her family and childhood home to be with the man she loves. TheBarrySisters sang a cover that was extremely upbeat and cheery sounding.
* The song "Rose Tint My World" from ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' is an upbeat song sung by Columbia, Rocky, Brad, and Janet about how they've all become corrupted by Frank N. Furter, while Brad begs for his mom to come and save him. The song even lampshades this with "Rose tint my world! Keep me safe from my trouble and pain!".
* "Doomed, Doomed, Doomed" from ''Theatre/TheGoldenApple'' is an upbeat ragtime polka about the inevitability of human extinction.

** The eponymous song has an energetic, rock-ish beat. Its lyrics talk about a madman who cuts his wrists open, has severe hallucinations and finally throws himself off a cliff in front of his neighbors. MindScrew to the max.
** The album also has also a poppy, almost cute song named "Maybe Maybe"... about a messy break-up that reaches its peak when the girl kills the guy by hitting him with her Rover.
** And the first single that came out, "I've Been Losing You". A rock song with gorgeous rhythm and effects... talking about a man who reflects about how, during a fight, he shot his girlfriend to death.
** A subtle example happens with "Soft Rains of April", a melancholic song about a lonely English man calling home [[GreyRainOfDepression in a rainy day]]. [[spoiler: The last verses of the song reveal that he's a prison inmate, and it's implied that his family has all but disowned him.]]

* "Koop Island Blues" by Ane Brun and Koop sounds relaxed and carefree, but the lyrics are about a woman lamenting the loss of her lover.
* Move/ThePuppiniSisters love this trope. Their covers of modern songs such as "Heart of Glass," "Spooky," "Walk Like an Egyptian," "I Will Survive," and "Crazy in Love" are performed in swing-era fashion, with sweet girl-trio harmonies.
* Jason Mraz's "Butterfly" is a classy song, all about sex. It's not innuendo based either, besides the title [[spoiler:which refers to the slang term for "vagina" by the way]]. It's a very explicit and sexy song.
* ''Stone Cold Dead in the Market'' is a jaunty, catchy tune about a wife who kills her violently abusive husband.
* Cole Porter's "Love for Sale" is a jazz standard which is usually performed in a cheery and upbeat manner, but is actually a fairly dark and cynical song about prostitution.
* Florence K did an upbeat Latin-sounding version of [[ChristmasSongs "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"]], which would seem about right... except that she's using the original lyrics from ''Film/MeetMeInStLouis'', [[http://www.ew.com/article/2007/01/08/history-popular-holiday-song which was somewhat more depressing than the version most commonly sung]]. Considering the "common" version has LyricalDissonance in itself, it's quite jarring.

* Infamous nineties song "''Macarena''" is a catchy dance tune about the town's GoodBadGirl. Who is planning to cheat on her boyfriend the minute he puts a foot out of the town. In the original Spanish lyrics, it explicitly says that she went on to cheat on him with two dudes the day he got drafted, and her life aspiration is to move out of her town and dump the guy.

---> You left without a word, no message, no number
---> And now my head is pounding like it were thunder
---> You left me with a heartbreak deep inside
---> Girl, you should see me cry all night as I wonder
* Merengue singer and songwriter Juan Luis Guerra tends to include a song about social issues in each album he releases... and those songs also tend to be very catchy and upbeat, leading to dancers everywhere happily dancing to songs about people applying for an American visa as their last hope ("[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy7ToYsHggA Visa para un sueño]]"), being confronted with high prices, higher corruption and lack of essential items ("[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zLpacr1DlU El Costo de la vida]]"), being victims of an truly awful medic care system ("[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4i7tbqKWp4 El Niagara en bicicleta]]"), or bribing their way out of being arrested by the police ("[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBFR0f6ENr4 Acompañeme civil]]").
** When Guerra made his [[TheMoralSubstitute Christian album]], the only song from it that made into radio was "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig9ZEXIUKiU Las Avispas]]" ("The Wasps"). A very upbeat song which, between the usual claims of "I love the Lord and he loves me back", has a chorus in which the singer assures you that you don't have to worry about the "enemy" trying to corrupt you, since Jesus himself promised to punish them by sending wasps to sting them.

* Onyanko Club's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuK_XbEIMe8 "Sailorfuku wo Nugasanai de"]] is a catchy, upbeat song... about a girl who wants to have sex. The lyrics include such lines as "Mama and Papa won't know", "It's a bit scary but / being a virgin is boring" and "I want to try having sex." Oh, and the title translates to "Don't Take Off My Sailor Uniform".
* Most Yaen songs are like this. For example, their 2004 song "HEAVEN'S RULE" might be best surmised as a song about a world of crime with victims and witnesses too afraid to do anything but look the other way- sung from the point of the criminal, all to a synth-laden V6-worthy noise-pop beat.
-->''I'm certainly not among the angels/''\\
''Yeah, I'm just a plain old rat/...''\\
''No matter who does what/''\\
''It's the rule to pretend you don't see/''\\
''This is the paradise where we enjoy that freedom/''\\
''WELCOME TO THE HEAVEN/...''\\
''This isn't a place for you to come to/''\\
''NEVER COME BACK AGAIN/''
* "Phone Lament" (携帯哀歌, ''Keitai Aika'') by Tokyo Pudding sounds like a grandiose ballad, but the lyrics are about the lament of a man who rarely hears his phone ring, gets cut off every time it rings, regrets buying it and even hates Edison for inventing it.

* J-rock band Flow did a mostly upbeat ska cover of "Okuro Kotoba"... which is a song about painful goodbyes.
** Considering the title roughly means "Words of Farewell"... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin one should be prepared...]]
* Miyavi has this with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFCcQMJ6Z-c "Papamama Nozomare nu Baby"]]. It sounds deceptively like un upbeat victory-inspiring rebel anthem...here are the [[http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858549336/ lyrics]].
* Music/ShiinaRingo's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqekZgfaEPM Queen of Kabukicho]]" is a delightful song about a girl whose prostitute mother abandons her and who subsequently becomes a prostitute herself.
** The album version of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T65DxviRHUk Yattsuke Shigoto]]" sounds like a loud, upbeat song, but [[http://www.nostalgic-lavender.net/ringo/yattsukeshigoto.html the lyrics]] are pretty much the exact opposite of what you'd think.
** And then there's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMzhW1YTxFc Zettai Zetsumei]]"... The "Bon Voyage" tour turns it into full-on disco. However, the literal translation of the title is ''Absolute Despair''.
* The hit track of the Japanese J-rock band Chatmonchy is "Hana No Yume," an upbeat bouncy song with a music video full of bright happy colors. Its lyrics, however, are full of sad, violent imagery, as in the refrain: "I cut my finger on a thin piece of paper / And red, red blood oozed out / Such a small blade, but it hurt, really hurt my fingertip."
* Japanese rock band L'Arc~en~Ciel's song "Feeling Fine": while an upbeat song musically, a translation of the lyrics point that it is likely about a couple after a breakup.
** "Dive to Blue" has a nice, calming, if not exceptionally cheerful tune, and has nice lyrics about flying. The music video shows the sinister aspect of those lyrics [[spoiler: since it starts with a man jumping off the top of a building to commit suicide and seems to imply him changing his mind about halfway down.]] Then it really screws with you by [[spoiler: making you think he was saved (even if it wasn't quite logical, but this is a music video after all)]]. A final shot after the music fades [[TheReveal reveals]] something of a twisted BrickJoke.
* This is a major theme of the Japanese rock band Bump of Chicken. Prime examples are [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL-4Csgx0Y0 "Dandelion"]], a song about a lonely lion who... well, just watch the video; and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCdsSVdukXA "Wheel Song"]], a song about someone leaving and possibly never seeing them again. Most Bump songs are rather sad but come across as happy. It's usually a shock to an English speaker who learns what the lyrics actually are.
* This song by 403 Forbeddena, titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P5a0mH92M8&feature=related "Go West"]]. Sounds pretty optimistic, right? The first thing said is "Humans should die".
* The JAM Project cover of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzSR_TFMirs "Okkusenman"]]. They rearranged Dr. Wily's castle's stage 1 BGM from ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', turned it a song about losing one's childhood... and play it with all their usual Hot-Blooded gusto.
* Nanawo Akari's first song titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqLOBhaizy8 I want to be Happy]], is a cheerful sounding J-Rock tune....but the lyrics were about someone suffering from depression (and based on the MV, committed suicide at the end). As a bonus, Neru wrote them and this is a Vocaloid producer known for making depressing songs.

* Made famous by Creator/LouisArmstrong, "When the Saints Go Marching In" is often performed in an upbeat and rousing tone. However, the traditional lyrics detail the apocalypse as described in the Book of Revelations. (It was originally a gospel hymn. Indeed, the reason Armstrong translated it to jazz was that his sister had suggested the traditional version was inappropriate and irreligious.)

* Nina Simone's "Go To Hell," a soft jazzy tune about how you better shape up or guess what, you'll roast in hell for eternity. That includes your children if you don't raise them right.
* Bobby Darin's "Artificial Flowers". A Perry Como-esque upbeat jazz song, with lyrics about an orphan making flowers in a tenement and then freezing to death.....
** There's also "Mack the Knife", but to a lesser extent.

* The solemn instrumentation and raspy voice of [[Music/LouisArmstrong Louis Armstrong]] make "What A Wonderful World" sound like a deathbed song. He makes it sound like he is dying, but he is happy and content with the good things in life he has remembered.

* The meaning of Music/{{Rammstein}}'s biggest hit depends on its spelling. If it's "Du Hasst" (You Hate), then the song is suitably angry. However, it's also been spelled, "Du Hast" (You Have), making it a love song. The lyrics work either way.
** Taken as part of the larger sentence "Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt" ("You have asked me and I have said nothing.")it's definitely NOT a love song. The song's chorus is a shouted "Nein" to a German wedding vow. (Made quite starkly apparent in meaning in the video) However, the progressing nature of the lyrics probably mean "du hast mich" is a doubled hate/have leading up to the rest. To muddy the waters, the English translation takes the "hate" meaning only and alters all the rest, leading to idiots on youtube "correcting" the accurate translation.
*** There's another pun in said German wedding vow: read as ''Willst du bis der Tod, der scheide . . . ?'' it means "Do you want, until the death which would separate . . . ?" Read it as ''. . . bis der Tod der Scheide'' and it becomes "until the death of the vagina," since ''Scheide'' (literally "separation") is German for "vagina." Rammstein loves its wordplay.
** Rammstein also makes sure to prevent LyricalDissonance in their song "Amerika", by pointing out in English that "this is not a love song... I don't speak my mother tongue/no this is not a love song."
*** And yet [[MisaimedFandom some people still take it as such.]]
*** They played it straight, for irony earlier in the same song. Listen to the opening version of the chorus -- in this song about American corporate/cultural dominance of the world -- and tell me it doesn't sound like a Soviet anthem.
*** Speaking of Soviet anthems... "Moskau". The cheery female vocalist sings about Lenin and pioneers while the main lyrics praise the titular city.. by comparing it to an old whore.[[/folder]]

* [=YOASOBI=]'s song 'Yoru ni Kakeru' is quite danceable and upbeat, and its pv is littered with pastel pink, but its lyrics are based on the short story ''[[Literature/AnInvitationFromThanatos The Seduction of Thanatos]]'', which is about someone's lover being influenced by Thanatos (the god of death) and thus keeps attempting suicide. They've been stopping their lover the entire time, since every time they're about to, they would text them. However, this time they finally understand that their lover doesn't want to do [[TogetherInDeath this alone anymore]]...
** Based on how the story this song was based on mentions that the person's lover was their Thanatos, another interpretation was that their lover most likely did ''not'' exist in the first place and they were just suicidal, further proven in the MV where the lover survived the fall completely intact while the man did not.
** This was [[InvokedTrope invoked]] according to the songwriter:
-->'''Q''': Why is the song's melody so upbeat?
-->'''A''': I figured if I were to write a gloomy tune to express [the short story], it would just become unbearably bleak, so I made it catchy and pop on purpose. I wanted to express the grotesque that resides within beauty and cuteness.
* "Chu Chu Lovely Muni Muni Mura Mura" is a really happy, peppy, j-poppy song about rape, paedophilia, masturbation, etc.
* Happened a lot with Music/AyumiHamasaki via ExecutiveMeddling. Her gimmick is that she writes her own lyrics (often based on the angsty experiences she had), but she rarely composes the music. While in the studio albums this trope is hardly noticeable, it becomes notorious in the Eurodance and Trance remixes of her first albums, where angsty songs about abandonment were given extremely happy new melodies. Memorable offenders are the remixes from "Trauma" and "Kanariya".
** One example from an actual album is "Memorial Address", a song about a sudden abandonment (implied to be because of the other person's death), who begins with a sweet and sad melody... and suddenly the music switch into an energetic rock tune. While keeping the TearJerker lyrics.
* The 1963 song "Ue o muite aruko" by Kyu Sakamoto (better known to English speakers as "Sukiyaki") has a cheerful-sounding tune, but is in fact about a man whose heart is broken, and who walks in the rain looking upwards so that his tears are disguised by the rainwater running down his face.
* Gackt's "Kono Dare mo Inai Heya de" (In This Empty Room) slowly builds to ninety seconds of cheerful humming reminiscent of "Hey, Jude"...as the increasingly angsty lyrics make it clear that the singer is ''losing his mind after his lover's murder''. Just to drive it home, the cheery music ends in a few ominous-sounding violin measures.
** "Kalmia". While having a rather soft melodic rock sound to it with some minor and basic guitar solos that don't really hint at anything evil, the translated lyrics depict hearing (and apparently seeing) headless dolls laughing while staring at an otherwise destroyed town from afar, and a recalling of an apocalypse of sorts wherein everything vanishes and gets sucked up into the sky in what sounds like a killer tornado/hurricane. All while Gackt sings along, his voice giving no hint of terror of the situation or any hint for that matter that this isn't just another one of his kooky rock ballads. However, a botanist or even a seasoned gardener could tell you that [[MeaningfulName the kalmia is a beautiful yet extremely poisonous flower.]]

** Also of note is the [[http://www.xiami.com/song/3455122/ji original version]] of "Awase Kagami" ("Self-Portrait in Two Mirrors"): RageAgainstTheReflection set to a pleasant jazzy tune.
* ''Puncolle Voice Actresses Legendary Punk Songs Collection'' is an album of female J-Pop singers covering various punk rock classics. Pretty much every single song falls into this category, like Rie Tanaka's cover of the Sex Pistols' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sidvycbl2Zk&feature=related&fmt=18 Anarchy in the UK]]. The melody and rhythm wouldn't seem out of place in a walk on the beach at sundown.
* While Ali Project songs tend to fit the pitch of the music according to what the lyrics are about, there are a few instances of this trope:
** Mitsubara Teien (Honey Rose Garden) appears to be about a girl falling in love, getting lost and hurt as she plays in the rose garden with her lover and eventually realising they'll have to break up and the garden will fall to ruin with him. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbNm4f7S5w instrumentals]], sounds something akin to Disney.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cofozBlCnM Bianca]] is about a girl who loves her toy doll, finds a lover, eventually abandons the doll and sadly reminisces sadly about her childhood.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIy0cgUdJNQ Nanashi no Mori]] (Nameless Forest) is pretty upbeat for a song about a quest for something that may or may not exist, and about the Nameless Forest from [[Literature/AliceinWonderland Through The Looking Glass]].
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhiplhZLTQo Gokushoku Ichidai Onna]] (Woman of a Colourful Lifetime) is very upbeat and jazzy for a woman who has experienced so many things in life, only to find them overrated and [[GoMadFromTheRevelation become nihilistic and suicidal, and preaching her experiences to others]].
* Utada does this a lot on her English-language albums, including:

** "Wonder'bout", a dancey number about daydreaming about what one's ex is up to, including the line "rather be out in the rain; now I understand why my mother ran away".
** "Me Muero", which has a funk-influenced beat and is about sinking into suicidal depression after being left by a lover.
* "Guchi" by Nakamura Ataru sounds like a traditional Japanese folk ballad, but it's about people complaining and the singer being extremely fed up.

* The song "The Way She Feels" by the band Between the Trees is about a girl who cuts herself, but the song is way too cheerful and upbeat for such a topic.
** At least until the latter part.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAa9c2fQBwo "Into the Ocean"]] by Blue October sounds remarkably mellow and even oddly hopeful for a song that's written from the perspective of someone committing suicide out of general depression (based on the lead singers personal experience) and because his love left him or died. Complete with a seductive siren-song of a violin solo. [[note]]Ironically, despite this almost positive portrayal of suicide, several fans have credited this song with keeping them from killing themselves.[[/note]]
* "You Know How I Do" from Music/TakingBackSunday is a driving upbeat track with a prominent sing-along line throughout that describes the detoriating effects of drug addiction on someone and how people close to them may have to consider moving on without them.

* "Jingle Jangle Jingle" by Kay Kaiser is extremely simple and catchy. But read between the lines (or just listen to the first one), and you realize it's about a guy running away from his wedding, and the sound of his spurs helping him to focus on his wandering

* A fair number of Gnarls Barkley songs. Take, for example, "Run (I'm A Natural Disaster)", an immensely catchy and upbeat tune that the lyrics suggest is about the singer becoming a dangerous nutcase after doing drugs. Or a ZombieApocalypse. Or even Music.
** "Neighbors" is dark... until you realized it's about a man getting annoyed at his neighbor and finally yells at him. ''If'' you take it literally.
** "Charity Case" and "A Little Better" are both like this (on the same album). The former about a lonely man confessing to an equally lonely woman, and the latter... about feeling a bit better after a massive bout of sadness. There's also "Who Cares?" on the previous album about a man talking contradictorily upbeat, but given its content, it's unsurprising.
* Music/{{Prince}}'s "1999": A funky dance piece about [[CosyCatastrophe partying during a nuclear holocaust or biblical apocalypse]]. "The sky was all purple, there were people running everywhere, trying to run from the destruction, you know I didn't even care".
** Well, they were dreaming when they wrote that, so forgive them if it went astray.
** "Sister" would fall well into this category. A catchy, upbeat, sugary pop song about a 14-year-old boy being molested by his middle-aged sister.
** Also, "Ronnie, Talk To Russia" was about the ongoing UsefulNotes/ColdWar tensions at the time.

* {{Music/Nirvana}}'s "Sliver" plays it more straight: the melody is cheerful, but the lyrics are about a boy having an awful night at his grandparent's. The song is clearly comedic; Cobain's voice shows the boy's "suffering" often.
** Does "Polly", a calm and mellow song about kidnapping and rape, count?
** Don't forget "Lithium", a song about a guy who kills his girlfriend and goes out to commit suicide, only to [[HeelFaceTurn Join Christianity]]. This all happens while keeping the same mellow feel throughout the song.
* "Tyler" by The Toadies is quite optimistic and laid back, even after the part where the narrator ''breaks into his love interest's house through the kitchen window'' and gets drunk before going up to her room, where he then states that he ''hears the fear in her voice''. At least "Possum Kingdom" had suitably dark music to go with the lyrics.
* "Black Bock" by {{Music/Melvins}}: a languid, summery folk-pop song full of "la la la's" that's apparently about slaughtering animals for fun ("I cut the throat of a billy goat and let it bleed", "It's kinda nice to know the things that make me happy / just realize, keep your dog away from me"). It's ''really'' far afield from their usual musical style (the very fact that the lyrics are intelligible for once makes them stand out), which makes it come off as BlackHumor... But then the music does eventually get a little eerie (though hazy and psychedelic, rather than aggressive), and it ends with some strange distant synth warblings.

* "Kaulana Nā Pua" sounds like a sweet romantic song, except that the lyrics are protesting the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and its subsequent annexation by the United States. On the Mākaha Sons album ''Nā Pua o Hawaiʻi'', the dissonance is reinforced by all the other songs generally being about romance or natureʻs beauty (notwithstanding deeper metaphors.)

* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUttIeq-1NQ&feature=emb_title Super Bad, Transmittable, Contagious, Awful Virus]]" is a DarkParody of the peppy song "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from ''Theatre/MaryPoppins'', which is about the Covid-19 pandemic.
-->''If you get bored, just think of the immunocompromised, who can't go much of anywhere unless it's sterilised.''
* A parody of the inspirational-sounding "Let it Go" from ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'' titled "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSgJeVwjnpc Let it Flow]]" is about [[Franchise/StarWars Anakin Skywalker turning to the Dark Side]].

* The Tiger Lillies are very good at this, though many of their songs have a more sarcastic/comedic than some of the examples here. Listen to "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhrGspR0yQo Bully Boys]]" and hear for yourself.
* The band Creature Feature does this in all their songs. Most notably in "A Gorey Demise", which is a tribute to Edward Gorey's book "The Gashlycrumb Tinies". It is a cheerful, upbeat, alphabet-themed song about twenty-six individuals dying horrible deaths. "A is for Amber who drowned in a pool, B is for Billy who was eaten by ghouls..."
* Music/AmandaPalmer (of the Dresden Dolls) released "Oasis" as the first single off her solo album. It's a happy bouncy hi-energy crowd-singy little number about... uh... [[http://www.vimeo.com/2730706 rape, abortions and backstabby friends.]] Oh, and writing a letter to a certain British band...
** Palmer pointed out her blog that the LyricalDissonance is a big part of what makes it offensive, and if she were to sing the same words to a slow mournful tune it probably wouldn't have been banned from the radio.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C17yfGyJjM The video]] is even better.
** There's also "Bad Habit," which is a catchy, upbeat earworm about self-harm.
** "Coin Operated Boy". The verses and chorus seem to be about a happy relationship between a girl and her robotic boyfriend... But when it gets to the bridge... oh boy.
** And then there's her version of Rebecca Black's "Friday"

* Boys Night Out's entire ''Broken Bones and Bloody Kisses'' EP is extremely poppy and upbeat sounding, but the lyrical content is incredibly dark and macabre playing with many suicide metaphors and even one track about murdering an ex-lover. And the movie that is sampled to set the mood? ''Film/HenryPortraitOfASerialKiller''
* Played with rather amusingly in the Say Anything song "That Is Why". It comes off as a peppy faux show tune that's actually about him hating his ex and listing of reasons why she's a horrible bitch. Especially weird that an earlier version of the song, "You Should Rock My World" is cheery lyrics set to the same melody.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yfISlGLNU "I'm On a Boat"]] by Music/TheLonelyIsland, is an angry and confrontational sound rap in pure "gangsta rap" style... [[StealthParody about being on a boat]].
** On a similar [[IncrediblyLamePun note]], there's also [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c "Like A Boss"]], which starts out as a corporate performance review done to the tune of a rap song. About halfway through, the lyrics [[RefugeInAudacity take a turn for the weird]].
* French comedian trio ''Les Inconnus'' had a field day with this, usually in the name of [[AffectionateParody lighthearted satire]]. Their most notable piece is arguably [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WousdWP-5vY "Et vice et versa"]], a soothing, melancholic-sounding piece that could almost be mistaken for a genuine song...that is, unless you speak French, in which case the deep-sounding, hellenism-laden lyrics are nothing more than [[WordSaladPhilosophy hilarious pseudo-philosophical ramblings]] [[MeaninglessMeaningfulWords full of misused words]] [[WantonCrueltyToTheCommonComma and laughable grammar]] [[IceCreamKoan and mean absolutely nothing.]]
* "Diarrhea" by Music/DaYoopers is played as a straight, serious love song (well, except for the fart solo). It obviously isn't a straight, serious love song — he wants to go on a date with her but has to stay at home because he has the runs.
* The Irish comedy band Dead Cat Bounce has particularly nice once called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin 'That Summer When We Killed That Guy']], a cheery little number performed in the style of The Beach Boys.
-->''We were young and fancy-free.\\
We never had that much to do.\\
The world was made for kids like me,\\
In the summer of '62.\\
We were too young to be blue.\\
We never had that much to do.\\
But then we found something to do.\\
\\
Oh, remember that summer when we killed that guy?\\
The way we tortured him, the way we watched him die?\\
The way we mangled his corpse on the railway line?\\
That sunny summer's day we killed that guy!''
* Brazilian comedy team Casseta & Planeta have [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8R693uZn8 "Eu tô Tristão"]], a cheery tune that could fit any Carnival ball, and has been described as a "exhumation samba" for lyrics that roughly go "I am so sad/I am a fucking wreck/I'm in the shit/Became a card out of the deck".
* Music/MitchBenn:
** "Now He's Gone" is a parody of TeenageDeathSongs that sets a [[MurderBallad homicidal teenager]] murdering her boyfriends before they can hurt her to a 50s teenybopper tune.
** "Imagine You Were Mine" is a cheery song from the perspective of a particularly creepy stalker. [[spoiler: From his jail cell.]]
** "Doctor Who Girl" is a sweet-sounding love song from the viewpoint of a {{misogyn|ySong}}ist who longs for a subservient woman to feed his ego, like the stereotypical ''Series/DoctorWho'' companion.
* "You're Always Welcome At Our House", written by Creator/ShelSilverstein, is a jaunty children's tune about [[EnfantTerrible a bunch of kids killing unsuspecting visitors and hiding their bodies]].
* Music/SpikeJones's "WesternAnimation/DerFuehrersFace" (a BreakawayPopHit from a WartimeCartoon featuring WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck) has the tune of a jaunty German drinking song but is actually a biting HailToTheThief-style TheVillainSucksSong about UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and ThoseWackyNazis.
--> Ven der Fuehrer says ve ist der master race\\
Ve "Heil! Heil!" right in der Fuehrer's face\\
Not to love der Fuehrer is a great disgrace\\
So ve "Heil! Heil!" right in der Fuehrer's face
* Speaking of Creator/{{Disney}} cartoons, there's also a UsefulNotes/JosefStalin-related [[https://youtu.be/qvX8WLJ-fHo parody]] of "Gaston" from ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' (which was technically a VillainSong to begin with, but a lighthearted and cheerful one).
* The song "UsefulNotes/{{Kosovo}}" by UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}} radio comedian Bob Rivers is a parody of "Kokomo" by Music/TheBeachBoys, keeping the cheerful tropical rhythm intact but referencing the bloodshed of UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars to mock [[EagleLand US foreign policy]]. This led to a minor scandal in 2005 when some UsefulNotes/{{Norwegian|sWithNoAmmo}} peacekeepers stationed in Kosovo made a [[https://youtu.be/xu8Iotgll8A video]] of themselves lip-syncing and dancing to the song.

* Rhett & Link wrote a soft song called "Get You Back" about revenge. They also wrote a song about squirrels which has a "squirrely" feel but portrays their anger about being shown all over the Web without giving consent first.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg2kDtJZos8 "Up, Up, Down, Down"]] by Kirby Krackle starts out as a simple story about a geeky gamer guy who works at a video game store having a crush on a girl who frequents the store, but goes into something completely different all together while still keeping its absurdly happy tone.
* Creator/AdamSandler is prone to doing this. For example, "Ode to My Car" has a reggae sounding feel to it. The song itself is about [[TheAllegedCar all the problems he's had with his misshapen, breakdown-prone, old, ugly "car"]], [[ClusterFBomb and curses it out in just about every lyric]]. Observe:
-->''It got no CD player, it only got the eight-track''\\
''Whoever designed my car can lick my sweaty nut sack (Make 'em bite his ass, too)''\\
''And I got no fucking brakes; I'm always way out of control''\\
''Eleven times I day, I hear, "Hey, watch it asshole! (You fucking piece of shit!)''
** He also has a reggae sounding song about casting voodoo curses on people who annoy him.
* Music/JonLajoie employs this in most of his songs, from "Everyday Normal Guy" (a gangsta rap about a boring 9-5 average Joe), "Stay At Home Dad" (a heavy metal piece about a house husband on paternity leave), and ''Sunday Afternoon'' (a techno dance mix about doing chores at the end of the weekend). About the only exception is the oeuvre of "MC Vagina", which is more in the HollywoodToneDeaf category.
** Then there's "Alone in the Universe," a soulful song that wouldn't sound out of place in a ''Creator/{{Coldplay}}'' album...if it wasn't about [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbation]].
** "Please Use This Song" is a cheerful, catchy, inoffensive pop-rock number full of triumphant chords... about the singer [[MoneyDearBoy explaining that he's broke and begging for someone to license the song out]], while listing off the products the song could potentially advertise (including hair remover, videogames about [[UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 shooting hookers]], unneeded medications, the banks that took his house, and suicide hotlines). The song concludes with him cheerfully noting, "The music industry's dying, but consumerism is thriving."
** "Pop Song," were the lyrics to be taken out, would be a normal, if above-average, 2010s-era song. Said lyrics are about the manufactured nature of pop music, its committee-designed origins, the interchangeable nature of its artists, and its tendency to be marketed by using sex appeal to prey on the emotionally insecure.
* Music/NapoleonXIV's... anything, pretty much. Most of his songs are cheerful, happy-sounding tunes about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4&list=PL3A0CDA7418922547 various forms of mental illness]].
* "The Hot Dog Man is packing up..." Lampshaded in that as Music/{{Tripod}} sing the song, in-character Gatesy is as unaware of the upcoming lyrical dissonance as the rest of us are and reacts with increasing horror as the song turns sinister. And ''boy'', does it turn sinister.
** Also occurred in the Tripod song "Congo", which starts off as a serious song about the pointlessness of war, and while the lyrics stay depressing, Gatesy and Yon eventually turn it into an upbeat cheerful song, complete with cheerful dancing.
* Present in many Arrogant Worms songs, although it is comedy - "Killer Robots From Venus", for example, is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin about killer robots]] but is set to a cheery tune more suited to happier subjects.
* Music/TimMinchin's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvnYIxv_364 "Canvas Bags"]] is an example not only of lyrical dissonance but also of ''performance dissonance''.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNZzJELbFRI "Ferrets"]] by Creator/FilmCow. {{NSFW}} probably.
* Music/LemonDemon does this a lot. A few examples:
** "Atomic Copper Claw" is a hyper song is sung by a paranoid person who believes he's being stalked by someone wanting to kill him, with the instrument the song is named after hiding under his long sleeves.
** "Dead Sea Monkeys," a cheerful, upbeat song about... dead sea monkeys.
** "Gonna Dig Up Alec Guinness," perhaps the best example, a cheerful, 80's-sounding rock song about exhuming Alec Guinness and putting him on display for profit.
** "Stuck," a slow, cheerful-sounding song with a lot of whistling about a person who is literally trapped in a song and wants to you put him out of his misery by skipping the track.
** "Eyewishes," a catchy rock song with a great guitar riff about committing suicide.
** "I Know Your Name," a catchy surfer-rock melody about an insane man who accosts random people and burns down a supermarket.
** "Action Movie Hero Boy," a song about a dynamite-obsessed moron who blows himself up.
** "The Saga of You, Confused Destroyer of Planets," a catchy little tune about blowing up millions of lives. "It's just a paradox, it isn't wrong."
** "The Satirist's Love Song," a cheerful tune in which the narrator tells his girlfriend or significant other that their entire relationship was a work of satire.
** "Bill Watterson," a song about stalking [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Bill Watterson]].
** And then there's "The UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny", a happy little song about dozens of pop-cultural characters fighting a free-for-all epic battle to the death that devastates the Earth.

** "Do I Creep You Out" is a direct parody of the Taylor Hicks soul song "Do I Make You Proud", whereas it describes the tendencies of a stalker in a humorously over-the-top fashion.

** "Everything You Know Is Wrong" is a happy, upbeat song in which the singer gets involved in a serious accident, gets vivisected by aliens, dies of a papercut, and has to face the existential quandary of being repeatedly told that everything he knows is wrong, by no less than Saint Peter, the disembodied head of Colonel Sanders, and his [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking hibachi dealer]]. InTheStyleOf Music/TheyMightBeGiants, too.

** "One of Those Days" is a jazzy bit of '80s pop-rock about a guy going through one of the worst days imaginable, though he plays the dissonance within the lyrics as well:
--->''I just wrapped my Cadillac around a tree\\
A big swarm of locusts is following me\\
[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking There's not even anything good on TV]]\\
It's just one of those days''
** "Your Horoscope For Today" is a rather upbeat song about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the obvious]]. The horoscopes in question tend to be some combination of [[{{Horrorscope}} weirdly ominous]] and/or [[StrangelySpecificHoroscope oddly specific]]:
-->''Gemini\\
Your birthday party will be ruined once again by your explosive flatulence\\
Your love life will run into trouble when your fiancé [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice hurls a javelin through your chest]]\\
[...]\\
Sagittarius\\
All your friends are laughing behind your back\\
'''[[VoiceOfTheLegion KILL THEM]]'''''

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s36gyFBvI7M "Another Irish Drinking Song"]] by Da Vinci's Notebook is a song about people dying, but it's so upbeat and catchy that you'll find yourself clapping to it. Not to mention that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6czsWW6OUog the minions sing it]] in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe2''.

* {{Rockapella}}'s "Zombie Jamboree" is a light-hearted song about zombies taking over New York and eating everyone. Narrator included.

* Laibach. One of their signature techniques is to make [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laibach_(band)#Cover_songs jarring covers]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbB1s7TZUQk This one]] is possibly their most well-known song.
* The Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) Band's "I'm The Urban Spaceman" is a catchy tune with an incredibly misanthropic lyric when you examine it closely -- basically the sort of person who "never lets my friends down" is the sort of person who does not actually exist. The lyrics describe a person who is exemplary in many more ways than a real person could be (and implies having superpowers as well). It could just as well be about a comic book character.
** In the performance on ''The Innes Book Of Records'', the Urban Spaceman was an invisible man in a tuxedo -- a perfect-yet-nonexistent person.

* The band Of Montreal employs this trope to an extreme level in their latest album, ''Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?'' Almost every song on said album mixes very happy instrumentals with lyrics about religious confusion, anti-depressants, and other such themes. (The lead songwriter was going through a nervous breakdown and marital troubles at the time.)
** Earlier song "Chrissy Kiss The Corpse" is a jaunty number about desecrating an old woman's corpse in public... Although in this case, the lyrics were clearly mining the situation for BlackComedy.
* The sixties group Music/TheZombies released a jolly bouncy number called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWfRbW-ObHk Care of Cell 44]]", basically about a poor boy whose girlfriend has been imprisoned for an unspecified crime.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQRS40OKNE "White Winter Hymnal"]] by Fleet Foxes. It's a beautiful little ditty about decapitation.

* Florence + The Machine: Between Two Lungs and Cosmic Love to name two particularly dissonant pieces.

* Der Hölle Rache, or "Hell's Vengeance", is one of those classical pieces everyone recognizes but nobody can name. It's an aria from the Mozart opera "The Magic Flute" in which an enraged queen threatens damnation and disownment upon her daughter if the girl doesn't kill one of the queen's enemies. The general tone of the piece, however, is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02yf6RHIQjQ somewhat less than fiendish]].
** That Website/YouTube video is a performance by Natalie Dessay, who refuses to play the Queen as a villain and will only perform her if she can be sympathetic. For true chills, check out this one by the [[EvilIsCool awesome]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuKxL4LOqc Diana Damrau]].
* "Batti, batti o bel Masetto" ("Beat me, oh lovely Masetto") from Mozart's ''Theatre/DonGiovanni'' is a calm and tender love song in which a woman begs her fiance to beat her.
** To be fair, the subtext of the aria basically comes down to a teasing, "You love me way too much to beat me, even if I did cheat on you like you think I did."
* Mozart is also responsible for a quite beautiful, six-part canon entitled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C78HBp-Youk "Lick Me in the Arse."]]
* Besides the aforementioned ''Tosca'', how about the rather sweet lullaby Mariya sings at the end of Tchaikovsky's ''Mazeppa''? It would be quite beautiful if [[spoiler:she wasn't A. completely mad, B. holding and rocking a dying man who she thinks is a child, who dies half-way through, and C. about to freeze to death]].
* Speaking of Puccini, the aria "O mio babbino caro" from ''Theatre/GianniSchicchi'' also applies, as Lauretta's pleading with her father to let her marry the man she loves, or she'll kill herself.
* Any serious opera by Rossini. It seems the man was practically incapable of writing anything NOT upbeat and cheerful even if the lyrics call for vengeance, anguish, distress, fear, etc.
* The trailer for ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'' features a harmonized choral arrangement of Music/{{Radiohead}}'s "Creep" by the Belgian choir Scala & Kolacny Brothers.[[note]]Incidentally, it's from their 2004 album ''On The Rocks''[[/note]] It's weirdly haunting and awesome.
* Carl Orff's ''Carmina Burana'' contains some of the most instantly recognisable music in the world. The first four minutes, better known as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5b7tgkdFH0&ab_channel=Mamanzord "O Fortuna"]], is quite probably the most famously epic piece of music ever written, and the platinum-iridium standard for OminousLatinChanting besides. The lyrics? The ''Carmina Burana'' covers a wide variety of subjects, and most are utterly mundane. "O Fortuna" itself is about ''bad luck''. More specifically, it's the lament of a student emo-ing out because he just gambled away the last of his drinking money.

-->Father, in tears
-->Says to his Basia
-->Just listen, it seems that our people
-->Are beating the drums
-->March, march...
* On Christopher Tin's 2009 album ''Calling All Dawns,'' there is a song on it called ''Se E Pra Vir Que Venha,'' which has a rather upbeat tempo and is even a bit of an ear worm, but the Portuguese lyrics? It's about the narrator waiting for her own death to come and is even quite joyful about it. Not long after that, though, there's ''Rassemblons-Nous,'' [[MoodWhiplash which is a pumping anthem]] [[ScrewDestiny about the opposite.]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkJdEFf_Qg4 Gilbert And Sullivan]] perform Baby Got Back.
* Speaking of Creator/GilbertAndSullivan, there's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJg6Duzzf4 With Catlike Tread]]" from ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance''. A song about how sneakily the titular pirates are breaking into the Major General's home... annotated ''Fortissimo'' (Italian, and musician, for ''"Really Loud"''), and set to the sound of blaring trumpets, rumbling kettle drums, and crashing cymbals.
* Music/JosephHaydn had a bit of fun with this in the ''Agnus Dei'' portion of his ''Creation Mass''. The lyrics (translated from Latin) are "Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us". Haydn proceeded to write the ''happiest'' Agnus Dei [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3SWqM-ZQww he could think of.]]

* This trope is the entire basis for the comedy act "Richard Cheese and Lounge Against The Machine." They take songs such as "Baby Got Back" and "Closer" and perform them in the style of Frank Sinatra.
--> "This one is for the ladies! [[{{Music/Nirvana}} Rape me / Rape me, my friend]]..."
* Music/FlightOfTheConchords semi-parodies it with "Robots" [[note]]also known as "The Humans are Dead"[[/note]] -- It's meant to be a serious ballad to the plight of robots killing humans and taking over. It's played totally for laughs, especially in the monotone the duo get.
** A straighter example is "Nothin' Wrong" from the duo's first release, ''Folk The World Tour.'' The song is an extremely upbeat, country-esque ditty about a man who [[spoiler: kills his wife for leaving him.]] The track lampshades this trope a bit: it was recorded live so when Bret delivers the verse in which [[spoiler: the narrator kills his wife]], there is a tense silence from the audience and the band until the latter [[CrossesTheLineTwice crosses the line a second time]] a moment later.
* Eric Idle's song "FCC Song" is a cheery little number about Idle being fined by the FCC, while it points out several people and issues who are causing trouble in the world; the underlying message being that instead of focusing on things and going after people that are actually problems, the FCC decides to fine him for language.
** "And fuck you all so very much!"
** The song, if broadcast, would allegedly cost Idle $250,000.
* This trope probably applies in several ways to all of MC Hawking's canon, which consists of a vocal synthesizer rapping about science.
** Not just rapping, ''gangsta'' rapping.
--->Kicking science like no one else can
--->My dick is twice as long as my attention span
--->So if you cross me bitch you're out of luck
--->'Cause Stephen Hawking is crazy as fuck
** For that matter, most nerd rap probably applies, from Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" to the Deckard Cain Rap.
* The Creator/HPLovecraftHistoricalSociety has created a pair of CD collections of holiday music with the lyrics replaced by references to a wide variety of Lovecraft's [[CosmicHorrorStory horror stories]]: ''Music/AVeryScarySolstice'' and ''An Even Scarier Solstice''. So you get the music to, say, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" with lyrics talking about the singer being chased through Innsmouth by Deep Ones.
** At least one of the songs, "Carol of the Old Ones," is actually not lyrically dissonant, because the Christmas carol it is based on is unusually creepy to begin with.
* On a related note, there's Music/EbenBrooks's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxScTbIUvoA Hey There Cthulhu]]", a {{filk}} of "Hey There Delilah" by the Music/PlainWhiteTs. "Hakuna Matata" from ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' has likewise been filked as "Cthulhu Fhtagn".
* Denis Leary has a song titled "Life's Gonna Suck," a Raffi-esque campfire song about how horrible life is when you're an adult. It ends "You're gonna end up smoking crack/on your back/face the fact/you're gonna end up hooked on smack/and then you're gonna DIIIIIE!" all sung in an incredibly cheerful manner. Of course, it's played for comedy--with Leary even noting "well, I think I smell a lawsuit in THAT one!" at the end of the song.
** See also: the appropriately-titled "[[https://youtu.be/UrgpZ0fUixs Asshole]]".

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pklr0UD9eSo "So Long, Mom"]] has a pretty similar theme.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSwjuz_-yao "Be Prepared"]] is another song in the same style about, among other things, how important it is for boy scouts to hide their reefer from the scoutmaster, and make sure they get a cut when pimping out your sister.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra3qnLXmJDM "I Wanna Go Back To Dixie"]] is reasonably congruous, but still manages to include throwaway lines that praise slavery and the KKK.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEkZxaoebvk "I Got It From Agnes"]] is about the spread of VD through, among others: parental incest, zoophilia, and a homosexual threesome (Aha! Lucky Pierre!).

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdkNp1X4n8 "My Hometown"]] is in the same style, and about how his high school chemistry teacher now runs an LSD lab and hands out samples to his students, his high school sweetheart has become a prostitute and the nice guy who ran the diner killed his mother-in-law and served her ground remains as ice-cream garnish.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAVxW5uoQe8 "I Hold Your Hand in Mine"]] is a love ballad that mentions that the singer killed the girl in question, and said hand is no longer attached.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlpVdCzpvl4 "When You Are Old And Grey"]] is a cheery love song about how the singer will abandon his beloved when she becomes too old for him.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park"]] should be self-explanatory.
* Bill Oddie of Series/TheGoodies stole a lot of tropes from Lehrer and came up with songs like "Mummy, I Don't Like My Meat" (a cheerful song about eating the family pets to avoid starvation).
* Stephen Lynch bases his entire career around this trope as well, singing happy, upbeat tunes about venereal diseases, {{Satan}}, Nazis, schizophrenia, and many horrifying things he does to children. And that's just in one album.

** "Christmas at Ground Zero," about celebrating Christmas in the middle of a nuclear war, is probably the most blatant example, as it manages to use this trope within the lyrics themselves:
---> "We can dodge debris \\
While we trim the tree \\
Underneath a mushroom cloud!"
** "Do I Creep You Out" is a direct parody of "Do I Make You Proud", whereas it describes the tendencies of a stalker in a humorously over-the-top fashion.
** "The Night Santa Went Crazy", arguably his darkest song to date. With a folksy tune reminiscent of Soul Asylum.
** "Weasel Stomping Day", an upbeat holiday song where the holiday in question is devoted to the slaughter of thousands of innocent mustelids.
** The entire song of "I Remember Larry" is a contender, since it's a fast-paced, upbeat song about a horribly abusive neighbor that made the singer's life miserable with his increasingly cruel pranks, with the last verse not breaking step when he describes breaking into Larry's house in the middle of the night, dragging him bound and gagged into the woods, stuffing him in a plastic garbage bag, and leaving him for dead. It puts a different spin on the rest of the song, such as the chorus repetition of "I'll never forget about Larry, no matter how I try".
*** It gets even better when you listen to him describing Larry as "...a funny, funny guy..." and realize that he was saying it with an undertone of [[SarcasmMode sarcasm]].
** "Good Old Days" from ''Even Worse'' sounds like a pleasant reminiscence of lost childhood innocence, but the lyrics are about a childhood delinquent who grows into a psychopath.
---> "I remember sweet Michelle \\
She was my high school romance \\
... \\
I tied her to a chair and I shaved off all her hair \\
And I left her in the desert all alone \\
Sometimes in my dreams, I can still hear her screams \\
I wonder if she ever made it home \\
Those were the good old days"
*** And very similar and getting humorous in the process is "You Don't Love Me Anymore", which, while sounding soft and melancholy, is all about a guy who apparently realizes very slowly (after being so clueless) that the girl he's in love with is just too [[AxeCrazy sadistic and abusive]] towards him (even describing actions done to him that should have killed him, all while acting rather mildly surprised of it all).
** "Trigger Happy" is a Beach Boys/surf music inspired tune about a gun-obsessed paranoiac.
** "Happy Birthday" from his self-titled album is a spirited, up-tempo birthday song. It encourages the celebrant to enjoy this birthday [[AntiNihilist because everyone dies, and the world is probably going to end soon]].
** "Bohemian Polka", which takes Music/{{Queen}}'s Bohemian Rhapsody about a man facing execution and turns it into, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a polka]].

** "Since You've Been Gone" describes the torture of the dumpee (in reasonably cheery '50s a capella doo-wop), and ends with the brilliant line "''I feel almost as bad as I did when you were still here.''"
** "Such A Groovy Guy" does this as well. The song sounds like '80's pop fluff, and then you listen to the lyrics...
---> ''Baby, are you in the mood for a little romance \\
Well, for starters I could pour some chocolate pudding down your pants \\
And then attach electrodes to your brain and watch you dance \\
Well, golly, wouldn't that be fun''
** "Skipper Dan", from ''Alpocalypse'', has a catchy, bouncy, upbeat tune and is about a man who used to be a well-known actor and has seen his ambitions go up in smoke, forced to work a dead-end job at Disneyland.
---> ''Look at those hippos, they're wiggling their ears \\
Just like they've done for the last fifty years \\
Now I'm laughing at my own jokes but I'm crying inside \\
'Cause I'm working on the Jungle Cruise ride.''
** "Everything You Know Is Wrong" is a happy, upbeat song, in which the singer gets involved in a serious accident, gets vivisected by aliens, dies of a papercut, and has to face the existential quandary of being repeatedly told that everything he knows is wrong, by no less than Saint Peter, the disembodied head of Colonel Sanders, and his [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking hibachi dealer]]. InTheStyleOf Music/TheyMightBeGiants, too.
** "Party In The CIA" is a similar case, with a happy, catchy tune - and lyrics about a CIA agent brutally torturing the nation's enemies before eventually being captured and killed himself.
** "One of Those Days" is a jazzy bit of '80s pop-rock about a guy going through one of the worst days imaginable, though he plays the dissonance within the lyrics as well:
---> "I just wrapped my Cadillac around a tree\\
A big swarm of locusts is following me\\
[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking There's not even anything good on TV]]\\
It's just one of those days.
** "Your Horoscope For Today" is a rather upbeat song about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the obvious]]. The horoscopes in question tend to be some combination of [[{{Horrorscope}} weirdly ominous]] and/or [[StrangelySpecificHoroscope oddly specific]]:
-->Gemini!\\
Your birthday party will be ruined once again by your explosive flatulence\\
Your love life will run into trouble when your fiancé [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice hurls a javelin through your chest]]\\

Sagittarius!\\
All your friends are laughing behind your back!\\
'''[[VoiceOfTheLegion KILL THEM.]]'''
** The original "Dare to Be Stupid" averts this trope. But then Al performed that song with backing from a...[[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/41om6s/the-meltdown-with-jonah-and-kumail--dare-to-be-stupid- string quartet?]]

* Music/LemonDemon's does this a lot. A few examples:

* Music/LemonDemon's "Atomic Copper Claw" is a hyper song is sung by a paranoid person who believes he's being stalked by someone wanting to kill him, with the instrument the song is named after hiding under his long sleeves.
** Lemon Demon does this a lot. A few other examples:
*** "Dead Sea Monkeys," a cheerful, upbeat song about... dead sea monkeys.
*** "Gonna Dig Up Alec Guinness," perhaps the best example, a cheerful, 80's-sounding rock song about exhuming Alec Guinness and putting him on display for profit.
*** "Stuck," a slow, cheerful-sounding song with a lot of whistling about a person who is literally trapped in a song and wants to you put him out of his misery by skipping the track.
*** "Eyewishes," a catchy rock song with a great guitar riff about committing suicide.
*** "I Know Your Name," a catchy surfer-rock melody about an insane man who accosts random people and burns down a supermarket.
*** "Action Movie Hero Boy," a song about a dynamite-obsessed moron who blows himself up.
*** "The Saga of You, Confused Destroyer of Planets," a catchy little tune about blowing up millions of lives. "It's just a paradox, it isn't wrong."
*** "The Satirist's Love Song," a cheerful tune in which the narrator tells his girlfriend or significant other that their entire relationship was a work of satire.
*** "Bill Watterson," a song about stalking [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Bill Watterson]].
*** And then there's "The UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny", a happy little song about dozens of pop-cultural characters fighting a free-for-all epic battle to the death that devastates the Earth.

* "You Are My Sunshine" -- a cheery children's tune, or so it seems. The chorus is nice enough, but the verses are very downbeat and depressing.
** Well, that depends on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqNPx1hbhfo who sings it]], now doesn't it?
*** No, no it doesn't. Are you listening to the words?
--->"The other night, dear,
--->As I lay sleeping
--->I dreamed I held you in my arms.
--->When I awoke, dear,
--->I was mistaken
--->And I hung my head and cried."

*** Don't forget
--->"You told me once, dear
--->You really loved me
--->And no one else could come between
--->But now you've left me
--->And love another
--->You have shattered all my dreams"
** Kevin Devine's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFR_Dv_AVEw version]] is especially heartbreaking (at least to me).
** And the song promptly becomes horror after reading the short story "It's a ''Good'' Life" or watching the ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 Twilight Zone]]'' episode of the same name.

* The JAM Project cover of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls7oOxUBbYQ "Okkusenman"]]. They take a song about losing one's childhood... and play it with all their usual Hot-Blooded gusto.

* [=YOASOBI=]'s song 'Yoru ni Kakeru' is quite danceable and upbeat, and its pv is littered with pastel pink, but its lyrics are based on the short story ''[[Literature/AnInvitationFromThanatos The Seduction of Thanatos]]'', which is about someone's lover being influenced by Thanatos (the god of death) and thus keeps attempting suicide. They've been stopping their lover the entire time, since every time they're about to, they would text them. However, this time they finally understand that their lover doesn't want to do [[TogetherInDeath this alone anymore]].
** Based on how the story this song was based on mentions that the person's lover was their Thanatos, another interpretation was that their lover most likely did ''not'' exist in the first place and they were just suicidal...

* The Music/WeirdAlYankovic song "Do I Creep You Out" is a direct parody of "Do I Make You Proud", whereas it describes the tendencies of a stalker in a humorously over-the-top fashion.
** Many other Weird Al songs use this technique as part of their humor, as well. "Christmas at Ground Zero," about celebrating Christmas in the middle of a nuclear war, is probably the most blatant example, as it manages to use this trope within the lyrics themselves:

*** And "The Night Santa Went Crazy", arguably his darkest song to date. With a folksy tune reminiscent of Soul Asylum.
*** And then there's "Weasel Stomping Day", a song about the slaughter of thousands of innocent mustelids, sung like an upbeat holiday song.

** "Trigger Happy" is a Beach Boys/surf music inspired tune about a gun-obsessed paranoid.

** "Your Horoscope For Today" is a rather upbeat song about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the obvious]]. The horoscopes in question... are not so cheery:

(In a demonic voice): '''[[HearingVoices KILL THEM.]]'''

* [=YOASOBI=]'s song 'Yoru ni Kakeru' is quite danceable and upbeat, and its pv is littered with pastel pink, but its lyrics are based on the short story 'The Seduction of Thanatos', which is about someone's lover being influenced by Thanatos (the god of death) and thus keeps attempting suicide. They've been stopping their lover the entire time, since every time they're about to, they would text them. However, this time they finally understand that their lover doesn't want to do [[TogetherInDeath this alone anymore]].

** Based on how the story this song was based on mentions that the person's lover was their Thanatos, another intepretation was that their lover most likely did ''not'' exist in the first place and he was the person influenced by Thanatos...

* [=YOASOBI=]'s song 'Yoru ni Kakeru' is quite danceable and upbeat, and its pv is littered with pastel pink, but its lyrics are based on the short story 'The Seduction of Thanatos', which is about someone's lover being influenced by Thanatos (the god of death) and thus keeps attempting suicide. They've been stopping their lover the entire time, since every time they're about to, they would text them. However, this time they finally understand that their lover doesn't want to do [[TogetherInDeath this alone anymore]]...

* Nanawo Akari's first song titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqLOBhaizy8 I want to be Happy]], is a cheerful sounding J-Rock tune....but the lyrics were about someone suffering from depression (and based on the MV, committed suicide at the end).

* "Bad Apple!!" is an extremely catchy dance anthem . . . about NEET and {{Hikkikomori}} depression and escapism. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owFulRTR1Sc Here's an English version.]]

* "99 Luftballoons" / "99 Red Balloons" by Nena is a (mostly) perky-sounding pop song about the titular 99 balloons accidentally starting WorldWarIII.

* Mozart is also responsible for a quite beautiful, six-part canon entitled "Lick Me in the Arse."

* Carl Orff's ''Carmina Burana'' contains some of the most instantly recognisable music in the world. The first four minutes, better known as "O Fortuna", is quite probably the most famously epic piece of music ever written, and the platinum-iridium standard for OminousLatinChanting besides. The lyrics? The ''Carmina Burana'' covers a wide variety of subjects, and most are utterly mundane. "O Fortuna" itself is about ''bad luck''. More specifically, it's the lament of a student emo-ing out because he just gambled away the last of his drinking money.