Sunshine and Rain Clouds

These bright and peppy songs have a center as cold as ice.  Sometimes heavy lyrical messages are disguised behind uplifting music. This is why I always recommend listening to the lyrics.

1. Jump - Van Halen
The synth line was written around 1981 by Eddie Van Halen but it was refused by the other members of the band. In 1983, producer Ted Templeman asked Roth to take a listen to the unused song idea. Roth listened repeatedly to the song. To come up with a lyric for it, he remembered seeing a television news report the night before about a man who was threatening to commit suicide by jumping off of a high building. Roth thought that one of the onlookers of such a scene would probably shout "go ahead and jump". Roth bounced this suggestion off of Hostler who agreed it was good. Instead of being about a threatened suicide, the words were written as an invitation to love^.
 
2. Pumped Up Kicks - Foster The People
"Pumped Up Kicks" became the group's breakthrough hit and was one of the most popular songs of 2011. The lyrics are written from the perspective of a troubled and delusional youth with homicidal thoughts. The lines in the chorus warn potential victims to "outrun my gun" and that they "better run, better run, faster than my bullet."

3. Some Nights - Fun
An indie pop song with elements of power pop and afrobeat while the lyrics depict the protagonist having an existential crisis. There is a common theme of decrying fame and the notoriety it brings. "Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck / Some nights I call it a draw / Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle / Some nights I wish they'd just fall off." 

4. Electric Avenue - Eddy Grant
"Down in the street there is violence!" The song's lyrics refer to the 1981 Brixton riot, the title referring to Electric Avenue, a market street in the Brixton area of London.  Things between police and residents of Brixton were already tense, but an incident in which police officers were accused of ignoring a black youth as he lay bleeding in the street from a stab wound proved to be the tipping point for a day of violence that came to be known as Bloody Saturday.  "Workin' so hard like a soldier / Can't afford a thing on TV / Deep in my heart I abhor ya / Can't get food for them kids / Good God!"

5. Rock the Casbah - The Clash
The song gives a fabulist (a fable in song or verse) account of a ban on rock music by the king being defied by the population, who proceed to "rock the casbah." The king orders jet fighters to bomb any people in violation of the ban. The pilots ignore the orders, and instead play rock music on their cockpit radios. It was inspired by the ban on Western music in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

6. Semicharmed Life - Third Eye Blind
The super fast vocal delivery makes the lyrics somewhat difficult to understand, but if you listen closely you will notice some seriously depressing stuff.  This song is aobu the downfall caused by drug abuse, specifically crystal meth, and the depravity that comes with it.  "The sky was gold, it was rose / I was taking sips of it through my nose / And I wish I could get back there, someplace back there / Smiling at the pictures you would take / Doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break."