Hi all
I've had Queen on today on shuffle and found my mood was all over the place, going as I did from the likes of 'Breakthru' and 'Fat bottomed girls' to 'Who wants to live forever?' and 'These are the days of our lives'.
Most mood whiplash'y artist or can you top them (#insert joke about topping oneself after listening to too many depressing Queen songs#)?
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Ah but Queen are awesome - Queen museum in Montreux isn't too far from us, and makes a great distraction. Oldest son particularly liked seeing a scrap of paper with "fried chicken" written on
Was about to suggest a neat juxtaposition of a couple of Leonard Cohen tracks ... say "Tonight will be fine" and then "Bird on a wire" (both on his second album).
Or, even better, "Saturday Night" and then "Cindy's Cryin'" on Tom Paxton 6.
But it then occurred to me that you can beat the target of "From cheery to depressing in one song" ... try most of Randy Newman's early songs which have jaunty tunes in which nestle lacerating lyrics (try "Old Kentucky home" for least offensive).
So your mood can go on a roller-coaster ride simply by tuning in and out of listening to the words!
I have to admit I love Leonard Cohen songs, I don't find them depressing at all not sure if that makes me weird or not.
The one band I can think of where their songs go from very downbeat (We Used to Vacation, Saint John) to much more upbeat (Love is Mystical) are Cold War Kids, but even they are more generally downbeat.
Are we talking lyric or beat/rhythm/melody here?
Re tempo for mood changers then Led Zep manage it, not only track to track but even all within the same track. (Dazed and Confused intro compared to later)
The Eagles have a variety of "styles/sounds", as of course do Fleetwood Mac, and of course the Beach Boys were passed masters of up tempo and slower (In My Room counterpoised with Good Vibrations)
If lyrically you want depressive look no further than "slash your wrists" Leonard, my other half seems to like him (she also thinks Dylan can sing )
One of the best songs I can right now recall that counterpoises darker meaning with lighter music is Suzanne Vegas's "Luka", imagine the tune with no lyrics, it is quite cheery, she effectively covers something really sad with a pretence of lightness. (on purpose. of course)
For mood whiplash in a single song there's Mitch Murray
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h2yDzLuBG8
Wow, someone with even more obscure tastes for mid-60s singles than my usually unfettered memories.
1965 was a great year for the unhinged (Napoleon XIV was a year away), but try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo0J8l4APV4 for a interwoven upbeat/creepy take on forlorn love.
Or of course the inimitable (and much earlier) Tom Lehrer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY
"They're coming to take me away , Ha Ha" , the original single, is with our vinyl collection in Sweden that we hopefully now will collect next year, and of course the reverse side was........................................ which presumably influenced the Beatles later re the White Album.
If you're in the mood for real obscurities in this vein, you could move on another year to 1967 for the incomparable Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera and the album track "I Was Cool" ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vVTxYMZx94
