Our 3rd random runner-up for the week, and I have to admit I smiled when the date generator threw up this #2 single…

‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, by Bobby McFerrin

#2 for 1 week, from 16^th – 22^nd October 1988, behind ‘One Moment in Time’

I smiled, because I would be able to tell the world how much I detest this song. To say the date generator threw it up feels apt (as does calling it a ‘number two’ single….)

Childish name calling aside, I really do struggle to find anything likeable about this song. Which is strange, because there are few pop songs that have tried as hard to be likeable. The whistling, the finger clicks, the spoken asides… It’s all so folksy, so cute. An a cappella song for all ages – from five to ninety-five – to enjoy.

Except, no. It genuinely makes my skin crawl. And that’s before you get to the lyrics. One critic at the time described it as a ‘formula for for facing life’s trials’, but Bobby’s formula is to simply smile like a lunatic at whatever problems life brings… No money, no partner, rent’s due and the landlord is taking you to court…? Don’t worry, be happy! Why? ‘Cause when you worry your face will frown, And that will bring everybody down… So shut up and smile, you whiny prick!

Maybe I’m reading the song wrong, and am missing a layer of cynicism buried within. Maybe it’s a satire of this sort of life-affirming nonsense. But I doubt it. I’m pretty good at spotting cynicism. No, for me, this is the musical equivalent of a ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ poster, a song for those who refuse to ‘adult’. Plus the song’s crimes go beyond the pop charts: it helped spawn Big Mouth Billy Bass, the mounted fish toy that sings ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ on demand.

While I think it’s bad enough that this made #2 in the UK; it made it to the top in the US, Canada, and Germany. It stayed at #1 for seven weeks Down Under, which confirms every suspicion I ever had about Australians… It was released on the soundtrack to the Tom Cruise movie ‘Cocktail’, which features another all-time classic in The Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’. Bobby McFerrin is a one-hit wonder thanks to this tune, but to his credit he moved pretty quickly away from uplifting novelties, and started working in TV and film sountracks, as well as classical, jazz, and musical education in colleges and schools.