Tracks of our tears

English pop lyrics are all the better for being so miserable, says Neil McCormick

Song lyrics in the English language are the most depressing in the world. Or so say a team of linguistic researchers, whose recently published study into the use of language in the arts places songs written in English just above Korean movies and Chinese books in the gloominess stakes. Apparently our pop songs are bleaker than Russian literature and grimmer than American newspapers. This will surely come as a surprise to anyone who has had to endure the sound of Pharrell bouncing around the pop charts trilling about just how very happy he is for the past year. I am not going to go into the quality of the research from the University of Vermont, which seemed to be mainly based on Twitter and Google searches. My instinct is that it is probably correct. It is surely no surprise that popular songs might dwell on downbeat topics. The essence of pop music is emotional conflict. It motivates songwriters and inspires listeners. “When I’m happy, I ain’t writing songs, I’m out having a laugh, being in love, I wouldn’t have the time,” as Adele put it, a woman who conquered the world with two albums about relationships that went sour. This doesn’t mean the songs themselves are sad, because there is emotional succour in addressing hard times with the soothing balm of melody and rhythm, as anyone who has sung along to Someone Like You in a karaoke bar can attest. Pop is a mood moderator, which is why we imbibe it throughout our lives, let it fill our working days, soundtrack our celebrations and why we turn to it in our darkest hours. Music soothes the savage breast, as William Congreve pithily put it. Singing about sadness is a welltrodden path to recovery, a nonnarcotic antidepressant. When we Heaven knows he’s miserable: Morrissey’s music is gloomy but life-affirming look at the great lyricists of pop culture, they are not exactly a bundle of laughs, are they? But anyone who thinks The Smiths’ classic Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now is unhappy has never been on an indie disco dance floor after midnight. If we add up all that heartbreak and loss, there must be millions of sad songs floating about on oceans of minor chords. Far more than there are happy songs. But there may be another quite prosaic reason for this. Happy songs are surely the hardest to write, without becoming trite. We may all cherish Paul McCartney’s rare gift for the upbeat pop song aligning his melodious gifts with a cheery outlook on life, yet it is his deeply conflicted former writing partner John Lennon who received all the serious respect in the Beatles. Would you really rather listen to Jealous Guy or the Frog Chorus? Happiness brings out the nonsense in songwriters. Has anyone asked Pharrell what a room without a roof is and why it is happy? In English there aren’t many words that rhyme with happy, and those that do make you want to hit someone: chappy, flappy, sappy, slappy. Maybe it’s different in French, Spanish or Italian, but I don’t hear the rest of the world singing along to their pop songs. So let us hope there is some truth in this slightly spurious research, if only for the faint hope that Pharrell’s room without a roof will one day collapse and normal order will be restored with Morrissey at the top of the charts singing about how much he hates himself and wants to die.