” Fake Happy”
“Fake Happy” is a song by Paramore band which has written directed to all the people that are Fake happy, who are pretending to be happy while they’re not, particularly, people that have some sort of mental illness. This song is mainly about people that are trying to act like they’re completely fine and happy just for the world to see that think of them in this way. However, we never know that they’re deeply hurting inside, having to handle all these sadness and depression lies underneath that. Moreover, in this song, the lyricist might have faced some struggles having a hard time to get through, therefore, she was trying to mask her sadness, pretends to smile, while in reality, she’s not.
In the beginning, the lyricist mentions that she loves making everyone believe that she’s alright and that what we understand her is only what we see. However, based on this phrase “I been doing a good job of makin”em think I’m quite alright” , shows that, over the course of the song, she starts revealing herself faking being alright, and so she’s trying to express her true feelings through this song. As the song goes on, she’s trying to relate herself with the audience which makes them feel that they’re not alone. Furthermore, to make the song more compelling, the lyricist also inserted some figurative language, for example, “You see its easy when I’m stomping on a beat, But no one sees me when I crawl back underneath”. With this phrase, the lyricist wants to indicate that people only see the outside of her, they’re assuming that she’s strong, brave and she’s alright, yet they don’t understand how weak and desperate she is, and how lonely and downhearted she feels.
In this song, the lyricist has used specific word choice which makes the song more powerful, specifically, “mascara tears”. “Mascara” is a cosmetic that is used to thicken and darken the eyelashes and it’s used for beauty purpose. However, in this case,“Mascara tears” indicates all of her sadness that she feels and that she’s hurting. Therefore, In my opinion, this word choice is really interesting and thought provoking since it makes the audience understand deeper about all the sadness feeling that stays inside her. Let’s Imagine how strong did she cry until her eyes become this mess and does she want people to see her face that is full of ugly mascara tears? Overall, I think The tone of the music, however, is completely different from the tone of the lyrics. At first, the music sets the tone of gloomy and depressed and it changed to a pop rock music and cheerful tone throughout the song. Though, what the lyrics actually gives is the tone of sadness, distressed, touched in which I think is really powerful.
The author’s purpose of writing this song is to let the audience feel the pain of the people who have mental illness and think carefully about how they really feel. Sometimes, people don’t want to be fake happy, but it’s because they can’t express their feelings and they think that no one will understand how they truly feel. The message that the author is trying to convey here is that by pretending to be perfectly fine, people tend to think that it would be better for them, Consequently, without being honest to ourselves and others and without the help from the society, nothing can be done, so we will not get this weight off their minds.
As a conclusion, this is a really amazing and fascinating song since it is illustrating that sometimes, when we see people from the outside, we always assume that they are happy and fine. Though, it doesn’t mean that they’re really alright. Sometimes, people tend to fake being happy since they don’t want themselves to be hurt. However, everyone has to be honest with their feelings and are able to share this with the surroundings. Hiding the true feelings from others, including friends, family and society won’t help anything. Moreover, we, as a whole community, have to play an important role in making them feel safe sharing about their true feelings with us.