Lyrical Dissonance / Other Music

aka: Other

• One particular UTAU producer has songs full of this, especially their four most popular songs. While they all have an electropop-ified rendition of traditional Japanese music, the lyrics themselves never match up:
  • "Kuromaguro ga Tondekuru" (Bluefin Tuna Rains Down on Us) is a slow song about how the bluefin and yellowfin tuna are about to come to town in one day, and when they do, the raining fish kills everybody. Most people interpret the song to be about bombings, with the Bluefin as a bomber plane and the Yellowfin as the missiles, and the glass-shattering effects before the chorus to be windows breaking from the force of the blast.
  • "Yatsume Ana" (Lamprey Hole) is a quiet song about a boy who finds a secret path down the mountain, gets his finger chopped off for looking down a hole, and then taking his friend to the path and dying when he accidentally trips into the hole and "melts away". The friend meanwhile is traumatized for life and runs away from the scene, repeating the last chorus until the end of the song.
  • "."/ "Kurage" (Jellyfish) talks about a jellyfish monster that appeared out of nowhere one day, and goes on to describe its violent reproductive habits of clutching onto human faces and melting them down for nutrients to multiply. Depending on how the lyrics are read, this also happens to the narrator. Surprisingly upbeat and rhythmic melody despite this all.
• Another UTAU producer running by the name "Shachi" has a song named "Asayake mo yuuyake mo nainda" (There's no Sunrise or Sunset). It's an upbeat electro-pop song, but the lyrics are easily interpreted as a person about to die of hypothermia on a nighttime street.
  • The title and all of the lyrics of this song are also written in hiragana, without any Katakana or Kanji. In a native speaker's perspective, it means that you don't know foreign words, which Katakana is used for. This implies that the singer is a stray child.
• Any Squaddie Song is this trope embodied. Squaddie songs are unofficial songs made by soldiers in service, contemplating the misery of the military life, the uncertainty and fear, the horrors of the battlefield, the squalor in which they live, the stupidity of the superiors, the insanity of the war and yearning back to home. Many squaddie songs are downright abusive and insultive, and they act as the Foil to the "official" military music. The US Paratroopers' song Blood on the Risers is an archetypal squaddie song, and is about a young trooper whose first parachute jump goes horribly wrong. Oh, and the melody is the same as "Battle Hymn of the Republic".
• Likewise, the song Stand to Your Glasses, a WWI combat pilot song, which has downright miserable lyrics but very upright and jolly melody.
• Tsukiuta:
  • Hajime's solo "Aa, Kami wo Nadete, Hoho wo Nadete, Aishiteyaru" ("Aa, I will caress your hair and caress your cheeks and love you") (Music and lyrics by Machigerita) - In the inverse of the usual type, the song sounds sexy, but dark and a bit dangerous, like you're getting into a relationship you don't want, but the lyrics are really quite tender and cuddly. Hajime wants to soothe the listener from their loneliness. Though, it's possible that the lyrics could be read a different way.
  • Hajime and Haru's duet, "Koiwasuregusa", also by Machigerita, actually does seem rather upbeat, though it speaks of profound heartbreak.
  • Arata's solo "Kimi, Mai-oriru" also seems upbeat for a song about such profound heartbreak.
  • Yoru's solo "Koganeiro" (gold-color) is upbeat for a song with such melancholy lyrics, however, there's also "Akaneiro", the same song Covered Up by the composer himself. The tone of the song is completely different, though the lyrics and melody are the same... except for that one word: Instead of saying "soothed by the sight of your yellow hair," it says, "soothed by the sight of your red hair," possibly referring to Yoru's partner, You.
• The whole salsa romántica genre. That same from which Marc Anthony, La India, Gilberto Santa Rosa and the like had emerged. At least the emotional nature of its melodies downplays a bit of this, but putting love-song lyrics around the upbeat nature of salsa music makes this a Latino example of Lyrical Dissonance.
  • Another Latin American example is found in Argentine cumbia, playing the same role as their salsero counterpart.
• Udo Jurgens' Aber Bitte Mit Sahne is a German song about a group of people who routinely raid a bakery for its cakes and gorge themselves one by one, until one day, they die from sugar overload. Except it's sung in a bizarrely happy fashion, to the point that it starts with part of the Wedding March.
• Shel Silverstein: If one of his was put to music, it was definitely cheerful. But the lyrics were pure Black Comedy; just see "A Boy Named Sue" and "You're Always Welcome at Our House"
• 4everfreebrony's Here on the Moon, a cheery, lighthearted song about Pinkie Pie feeling abandoned by her friends and deciding to go live on the moon. Forever.
  It's time to say goodbye
  'Cause I've learned how to fly
  Don't wanna see you anytime soon
  All tension's thin out here
  In this cool atmosphere
  So I'll be living here on the moon
• Enya has "One By One", which is far more upbeat than any heartbreak song has any right to be.
• Essentially, this is Nicole Dollanganger's MO. With such a soft, sweet, and childlike voice and the calm instrumentals, she sings of songs covering everything from eating disorders to abuse.
• CG5's "Area 51" ends with the singer panicking as he and his friends are gunned down by Area 51 guards... and it's set to the same, peppy tune as the rest of the song.
• This is basically how The Megas operate: upbeat, snappy songs about Robot Masters being gunned down.
  • "Programmed to Fight" has a cheery melody about Crashman trying to fight his programming so he can die by Mega Man's hand and allow the Blue Bomber to defeat Wily.
  • "Evolution of Circuitry" is pretty snappy and focuses on Elec Man trying to overthrow humanity, with its Darker and Edgier version, "Sparked a War", focuses on Spark Man trying to destroy it.
  • "Metal Dance" is a dance number about a Blood Knight lusting for combat.
  • "Don't Mess with Magnet Man" is really upbeat for a guy who is, in his own words, magnetically pulling in his own death.
  • "Afraid of the Dark" is about Shadow Man Slowly Slipping Into Evil, but it's just so cheery.
• Was (Not Was)'s Memetic Mutation funk anthem "Walk the Dinosaur" is about nuclear Armageddon of all things, using the death of the dinosaurs as a metaphor for the end of the world as caused by nuclear weapons.
• "Van Lingle Mungo" by David Frishberg. The music is slow, poignant, and wistful. As for the lyrics, it's a List Song of old baseball players from Frishberg's youth, many of them with distinctive names (as the title would indicate).
• UB40's version of "Red, Red Wine" is so peppy that you can easily ignore the fact that it's about the narrator trying to blot out crushing depression over a lost love. This does not apply to the Neil Diamond original, which sounds every bit as miserable as its lyrics.
• Toy Dolls: The band's prank-punk stylings completely fail to conceal the fact that "Dougy Giro" is about the life and times of a local homeless man, and "The Lambrusco Kid" about a man's descent into Lambrusco-fueled life-destroying alcoholism.
• A lot of Seanan McGuire's filk songs are cheery, bouncy numbers about horrible diseases, zombies, etc. (For example, "Zombie Wedding" actually picks up a little when the narrator mentions she'll be committing suicide to marry her newly-dead boyfriend.)
• "Six O'Clock News" by Kathleen Edwards. It's an upbeat-sounding song about a woman who can't do anything but watch as her boyfriend goes on a rampage and is shot by police, all the while she is pregnant with his child.
• CrazyCod: "The Most Frightening Number (Stop The Clock)" has a very pleasant rhythm and instrumentation, but the song is a depressing reminder you're aging with no way to stop the clock and are getting closer to turning 30.
• The Italian song "Eva" and its first Brazilian version is upbeat but somewhat moody to fit that it's about an Adam and Eve Plot. And then Banda Eva, a great representative of the "Carnival lasts all year long" genre known as axé music, recorded a version of the cover because of the shared name, leading to a party version of the nuclear holocaust. (as comedian Gregório Duvivier commented: "Such joy. Nobody has spoken of the apocalypse with such euphoria! 'It's the end of the terrestrial odyssey. Get off the floor!' (...) She's singing about the end of the human adventure on Earth with the biggest smile possible.")
• The song "Empty Bed" by Saint Punk has a very intense beat and melody, and its energy made it popular for Twitch streamers to use during high-speed car chases on NoPixel livestreams. However, the lyrics are about missing a romantic partner who has left (hence the "empty bed" of the title), and are rather somber.
• "2 Phút Hơn" ("2 More Minutes") by Vietnamese singer Pháo, best known for being paired with an animated gif of Zero Two doing a dance from the infamous "ME!ME!ME!" music video, has a very energetic and party fitting beat, while the lyrics describe a woman forcing herself to get drunk so the man she's with at the bar will love her.
• MILGRAM: For a group of prisoners singing about their murders, many of the songs are rather upbeat.
  • "After Pain", Muu Kusunoki's first song, is a light rock song about how she was bullied relentlessly.
  • "I Love You", Mahiru Shiina's second song, sheds light on her Destructive Romance. The chorus joyfully repeats "daisuki" (monstrously in love) such that it sounds like "die, die, die", and then she actually whispers "die" at the end when her boyfriend hangs himself.
  • "The Purge March", Amane Momose's second song, is most upbeat in the chorus, in which she sings about the pointlessness of her pleas for mercy in the first one (sung over visuals of her drowning) and her resolve to turn it around on her abuser in the last one.
• Songdrops:
  • "Tinkle Tinkle in a Jar" has a sentimental tune and is a parody of a lullaby, but it's about peeing in a jar.
  • "The Wheels on the Bus are Falling Off" is sung cheerfully, but it's about a burning bus full of zombies and mad snakes.
  • "The Pool Party" sounds upbeat, but it's about dangerous animals being loose in a pool.
  • "I Got a Pea" and "The Long Word Song" have somewhat goofy subject matter, but are sung in a slow, serious way. Perhaps this is why the creator also created faster versions.
  • "My Cowgirl" has a slow, romantic sound to it, but it's about how the singer's girlfriend can burp louder than his cousin.
  • "I Love U-Kuleles" also sounds like a love song, yet it's about ukuleles.
  • "You Turn My Pinkies Blue" sounds slow and emotional, but its lyrics speak of things like throwing up and wetting one's pants in fear.
  • "Hippopotami" also sounds slow and emotional, but is about hippopoatmi.
  • "I Sneezed a Sneeze" sounds sentimental, but it's about sneezing.

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