By Martin H. Rots

I call it happy music.  It was a phenomena of the mid-sixties we could use a little of these days.  Happy music celebrated youth and freedom.  It was decidedly non-political in an era when politics tainted society at every level.  It wasn't like the blues, happy music was about connecting and being in love, not the devastation of losing the best thing you ever had.  Happy music is the antithesis of the blues.  In short, happy music has the potential to make you feel good when you hear it, even when you're down.  Happy music will lift you from that black hole of depression in which we sometimes find ourselves mired.

The Beach Boys wrote happy music in the beginning as did their Southern Californian cohorts, Jan and Dean.  They sang about girls, cars and surfing.  I Get Around is not about an introverted, manic depressive.  Surf City was an imaginary, idyllic destination (probably Huntington Beach) where there were, "two girls for every boy."  How can you miss with those odds?  California Girls celebrated the opposite sex the world over.  The title of Fun, Fun, Fun says it all.

With some groups, happy music was a band policy.  The Lovin Spoonful intentionally avoided political themes in their music.  They wrote songs like Do you Believe in Magic? and You Didn't Have To Be So Nice, hardly tunes that encouraged anyone to take to the streets in violent revolution.  Daydream was a relaxing accompaniment to a hammock and something cool to drink.  Summer in the City was the edgiest track the Spoonful ever released.

Don Kirshner took four unknowns, put smiles on their faces and teamed them up with the elite of LA's musical community.  With Boyce and Hart, Neil Diamond and Carol King writing for them, they started churning out one upbeat hit after another.  Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees introduced their slapstick television show modeled after the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night. 

The Rascals gave us It's A Beautiful Morning, an ode to the potential of each new day.  The Beatles sang of a Good Day Sunshine and George Harrison gave us Here Comes the Sun on Abbey Road.  Buddy Holly's Everyday is a compact little number with a catchy melody that's easy to sing along to.  Spanky & Our Gang celebrated life and falling in love on a perfect day with Lazy Day.  Paul Simon wrote about skippin' down the street and feeling groovy in The 59th Street Bridge Song.  The Supremes invited us to The Happening while Martha and the Vandellas were Dancing in the Streets.

Much later, in 1988, Bobby McFerrin exhorted us Don't Worry, Be Happy, the ultimate happy music tune.  The lyrics were lifted from Mehr Baba, an Indian holy man.  Originally part of the soundtrack for the motion picture Cocktail, it was re-released in the fall of that year and became an international hit reaching #1 in the United States and #2 in Great Britain. 

John Phillip Sousa wrote rousing military music like The Stars and Stripes Forever in the nineteenth century to stir people's patriotic fervor.  In the depths of the Great Depression, people sang Happy Days Are Here Again with enthusiastic optimism in the face of overwhelming odds.  It wasn't just the economy that was greatly depressed during that era.  World War II brought energetic romps like The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.   The fifties produced the mindless banality of How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?        

How wonderful that music has the magical ability to lift our spirits.  Who hasn't cranked up the stereo while working around the house?  Energetic music produces energetic results.  A pair of earphones playing your favorite music changes cutting the lawn from a chore to a pleasant experience.  Marvin Gay or Teddy Pendergrass can put you in the mood and enhance your lovemaking with their sensuous music and lyrics.  If that doesn't make you happy, what will?

Maybe happy music will make a comeback.  It seems to have fallen from favor over the years.  Bobby McFerrin was the last artist to demand we be happy and that was a long time ago.  People like happy music.  It's sad that we have to be told to be happy or even to aspire to happiness.  The Declaration of Independence guarantees our right to "the pursuit of happiness," but makes no suggestions as to how to capture that elusive "happiness."

Wouldn't it be nice  if we were all able to take happiness for granted?