Thought - Happiness is a Warm Song

Note: This is something I wrote a while ago but just found. Maybe this will help more people get into awesome Icelandic music...

I know - awful Beatles reference. Couldn’t help myself.

But - the reason I use that reference is I was listening to Sigur Rós and thought of the concept of “pure happiness”, with that Beatles song being the first song I could think of with ‘happiness’ in the title.

So - pure happiness. What is it? Essentially it is an injection of emotional substitute into some melancholy or even normalcy of being. This emotional substitute is through music. So, I thought to myself, what embodies happiness? Sigur Rós.

Three songs that define happiness through their music:

Hoppípolla - video

Completely overused (and therefore perhaps overrated) tune that really shows us hope in musical form. It’s no wonder that every web video and movie trailer (I’m looking at you Slumdog Millionaire) is using this song to chronicle some epic journey of the soul. It has a sublime piano riff that continues throughout the song and will get stuck in your head (guaranteed), assisted by some atmospheric drums and guitar. Awesome, perhaps iconic song that ultimately shows happiness through hope.

Gobbledigook - video

OK, before last night, I always thought that this song was pure happiness. Plain and simple, I thought it reflected inspiration in music. However, upon greater reflection I see that it shows a major part of happiness - freedom. As the music video itself shows, through the use of nudists cavorting around a forest, happiness is the ability to be free, to be yourself and to be together, both with others and with nature (argh Emily Dickinson reference).

Inní mér syngur vitleysingur - video

This song is pure happiness. There we go. I guess although I really liked this song prior to my discovery, it was pushed on by Slumdog Millionaire once more. In an obscure way of course. Ryan McNutt, on his blog mixed SM with this song for a Best of 2008 mixtape. And did it work. So, last night when perusing my iTunes library for Sigur Rós after a huge amount of thought put into deciphering the Hopelandic lyrics of Hljómalind (I did), I stumbled upon this song. It is happiness. From the chimes to the kicking beat, this song is amazing. It’s no surprise the english translation is “within me a lunatic sings”. It truly seems to be about self-actualisation and the appreciation of one’s being (wow, that was deep thought). I think I worked that out last night, playing the air drums to the joyous beat of this song.

So yeah. Pure Happiness. I’m sure there are heaps of other songs - I just thought of these ones first.

Link: Inní mér syngur vitleysingur [MP3]