“Happier” by Bastille & Marshmello (partial repost), Tuesday, March 21, 2023


British pop-rock band Bastille had what it took to survive the changing landscape of rock music. Today, the band has 18 million monthly Spotify listeners. Prior to “Happier,” a collaboration with anonymous DJ/producer Marshmello, the band has already explored EDM and had cultivated a rather radio-friendly pop sound. Propelled to fame with their number 2 British single "Pompeii," Bastille is a band that has accomplished what few bands could achieve in the 2010s, relevance. 

WHEN THE MORNING COMES AND WE'RE LEFT WITH WHAT WE'VE BECOME.  We all sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" when we were children. It was a standard in Sabbath school, but we also sang it at school. I can't remember if it was on a children's television show or at school where I first heard another verse: "If you're angry and you know it, stomp your feet." I don't think that I was emotionally stunted by my church upbringing, and if I was school may have made the difference, but looking back on the verse omitted from the Sabbath school curriculum, I realized that the church never really taught children (and maybe adults) how to deal complex emotions. If you're teaching children, you might be tempted to gloss over real or perceived unfairness or injustice and tell them to be happy, even to "stomp your feet" in happiness, but as children grow up, nobody ever teaches us how to make choices so that we can be happier. We may have been taught that question is selfish and we should try to make others happy, but how many of our problems would we solve if we looked at happiness in the long term? This becomes essential when we get depressed or feel like a choice we made is no longer effective. How can I not be miserable? How can I be just a little happier?

WHEN THE EVENING FALLS AND I'M LEFT HERE WITH MY THOUGHTS. “Happier”’is a song about a relationship nearing its expiration date. Being together doesn’t make each partner as happy as they could be, and the singer feels that if he leaves, his partner will be able to recover and find true happiness, whether with another person or pursing a dream. Sometimes the best way to love someone is to let that person go rather than to hold on tightly to the relationship. My last relationship was like that. It started out fun and there was a point that seemed like we could beat the odds--an age difference, a language barrier, long distance. Only after a while we both lost sight of what drew us together in the first place. I had similar problems in my current relationship, but love and communication along with relationship reassessment got us healthy again. I’m certainly not one to say that all relationships should last forever. I believe in divorce, but I also think that love that’s not worth fight for was never love.

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