Every happiness

"Happiness Is a Warm Gun," The Beatles
"Happiness Is a Warm Gun," The Breeders
"Happiness Is a Warm Gun," Across the Universe (Joe Anderson & Salma Hayek)
"Happy," Phil Keaggy
"Happy," The Rolling Stones
"Happy," Victoria Williams
"Happy Birthday to Me," Cracker
"Happy Ending," Randy Newman
"Happy Fool," The Choir
"Happy Little Chipmunk," Bradly Richards
"Happy Phantom," Tori Amos
"Happy Placebo Syringe Day," The Clock Work Army
"Happy Roy," The 77's
"Happy So Happy," Don McCloskey
"Happy To Be So," Over the Rhine
"Happy Tonight," Noel Paul Stookey

That Noel Paul Stookey song (he's the Paul in Peter, Paul and Mary) is available exclusively on the CD Demonstrations of Love, the cover art for which was painted by … Bradly Richards. It's, like, synchronicity or something.

Phil Keaggy's "Happy" was the subject of a long conversation on a church youth group bus trip when I was younger. The song is a cheerful instrumental for the first two minutes, with an old-school TV theme vibe. Then at the very end there's a couple of lines sung confirming that Jesus is the source of the tune's chirpy happiness. Those lines gave it the doctrinal seal of approval that made it acceptable church youth group bus trip listening material.

The unspoken rule seemed to be that music is intrinsically neither good nor bad, but lyrics make it so. All the music that came before the tacked-on lyric was to be regarded as Good because the content of said lyric was regarded as Good. Had that awkwardly tossed in lyric praised the girl the singer had spent the previous night with, rather than praising Jesus, then the content of that lyric would be Bad and therefore all the music that came before would have been regarded as Bad as well.

I remember, on that particular bus trip, listening to this particular song, realizing that I didn't accept that formula. I remember deciding that this —

— was intrinsically Good regardless of the doctrinal correctness of any lyrics preceding or following it. A minor epiphany, perhaps, but it seemed important at the time.