Maybe "don't worry, be happy" had it around the wrong way?
But we have hip-hop to put it right.
For those familiar with my stories, I write about something that interests me and has to do with a disruption of sorts and then, if I don’t forget, I add in a song (sometimes a collection of songs) that, in my mind, relate - sometimes directly, sometimes mysteriously and always quite circuitously - to the topic.
This time, though, I’m starting (and finishing) with the song, “Don’t Happy, Be Worry”, the latest release from Hilltop Hoods.
Hilltop Hoods are an iconic Australian hip hop trio that have been around for just over 30 years (realising that makes me feel so old) and have released eight incredible albums. 2006’s The Hard Road is one of my all time fave albums, which contains one of my all time fave songs, “The Hard Road”. “The Nosebleed Section”, from their first album in 2003, also remains on high rotation in my house. But this new song takes my love of the Hoods to a whole new level!
THE LEGACY OF HILLTOP HOODS IS ALREADY UNDENIABLE. THEY HELPED PROPEL HIP HOP AS A LOCAL GENRE IN AUSTRALIA.
https://hilltophoods.com/biography/
I was always going to be partial to any song that the Hoods released but “Don’t Happy, Be Worry” is an absolute winner of a song. It feels so right for the times, much like their 2021 hit, “I’m Good”, which was perfect for those long Covid lockdown days, see these lyrics:
I'm good, I'm good, I'm pretty good
Thanks for asking, that's mighty thoughtful
I'm good, I'm good, but not great
How are you? 'Cause I'm kinda awful
“Don’t Happy, Be Worry” has the same biting honesty throughout it.
When I first heard it - a week ago driving in the car to soccer - I laughed.
And then I cried.
I’m a crier; crying is not unusual for me. Crying while driving is, also, a regular occurrence (I seem to question my life choices most often when I am behind a wheel). But crying while listening to hip hop is less frequent. In fact, it’s never happened before.
It is the genius of the phrasing in the song that made me cry.
I'm not here for a good time
Or a long time, from what it looks like
Don’t @ me, I’m sorry
Don't happy, be worry
The deceptively simple reframing of another famous song, “Don’t worry. Be happy”, is what stopped me first. So disruptive to my brain.
When I heard the line again (it’s the chorus (and the title of the song) so you hear it several times) I fixated more on the second line: “Or a long time, from what it looks like.”
Put those lines together AND mix it with the rest of the lyrics, that include lines like:
“Others fight for borders ’round their house” and
“Ice caps are melting apart”
and then find me a better hip hop song that speaks to how we might all be feeling right now, ie full of sadness.
(All the lyrics, btw, are genius (read them here).
Apparently, this song is about the concern the Hoods’ have around workplaces, specifically the way businesses treat their employees. As Rolling Stone describes it, the song is about:
the increasing importance of a company’s bottom line over the wellbeing of their employees.
Rolling Stone
That makes sense when you look at the mock website they set up (part of their song launch) which, hilariously, provides an option to buy an employee kit!
This is a totally legitimate concern and a reality of the world right now AND a message that extends to everything - the wellbeing of all of us is being left behind when it comes to the profitability of some.
So, yes, we should be worried.
This is the other message of the song that I’m taking away: originally telling us that we shouldn’t be worried - just be happy - was a mistake. Not that there is anything wrong with being happy but there is something wrong with not being worried. Worried is a necessary emotion because it means we are paying attention to what’s happening all around us.
But it’s not simply worried. It is being worried that is important.
Here, I think that worry must be seen as very similar to how we think about hope.
Rebecca Solnit, a super important thinker and writer about the need to harness hope, has just released a new book, titled “No Straight Road Takes You There”. I haven’t had a chance to read it (it’s on my (ever increasing in length) list but I’m excited to do so as the reviews that I’ve read speak about it in glowing terms, (see one review here).
Kind of like how an album contains a mix of songs about different things, this book is a mix of disparate stories, linked by two threads: holding onto hope and the power of story-telling.
I like this quote by Rebecca
“The most important territory to take is in the imagination. Once you create a new idea of what is possible and acceptable, the seeds are planted; once it becomes what the majority believes, you’ve created the conditions in which winning happens.”
This, to me, is what links the emotions of hope and worry. They both contain ideas of alternate ways of being: you worry that things are not as they could be and you hope that things can be different from what they are. Both of these thoughts mean you already have an idea, however small, of what life could be like. And that idea is then what propels you to act. As the Hilltop Hoods tell us - and as Rebecca has constantly spoken about - these emotions are active emotions. They demand that we act because of them.
Coincidentally (although perhaps Rebecca is also a Hilltop Hoods fan), Rebecca, like the Hoods, seems to also be rallying against the glib, ‘Be happy’ idea. I read this quote of hers (that I think is in her book):
“There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep on walking whether it’s sunny or raining.”
I’m linking the feeling of good to happy here. Happy is fine, great even and absolutely a necessary part of human emotions, but, maybe, it has to be regulated, in that it has to co-exist with hope and worry (and loads of other emotions) because that enables us to see change (changing anything) is hard and not at all straight-forward (it’s a mix between ‘The Hard Road’ and ‘No Straight Road’).
When you know that whatever it is you are trying to do - because you believe it is possible - was never going to be easy, you (hopefully) don’t give up, or you don’t give up on the days when you’re just not happy.
So.
Embrace feeling not good. Cry in the car (especially when an awesome song comes on). Know that change is never the easy path. Have hope and be worried.
jb