History LyricalDissonance / Indie

* '[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyx8DMlUAQ4 From a Place of Love]]' Music/{{Mili}} sounds like a soothing love song...aside that the lyrics are taken ''literally''. It has little to do with love, but is based on a particularly horrific scene in ''VideoGame/LibraryOfRuina'' known as "Love Town" where a newlywed couple gets "trapped" in a WARP train and is tricked into becoming a combined flesh monster by [[spoiler:a duo of insane {{Humanoid Abomination}}s]] after it happened for millions of years inside the WARP train. Even worse, [[spoiler:we later found out whatever happened in the Love Town train was ''daily routine''.]]

* While many of [=YonKaGor=]'s songs tend to dip into dark subject matter while maintaining a moderately upbeat tone,
"[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjKLjGbL-W0 Circus Hop]]" is by far where the dissonance gets to its strongest. The instrumental itself is HappyCircusMusic, while the lyrics seemingly show someone going down a depressive spiral, nearing the brink of suicide.

* '[[https://youtu.be/XmaZv4RuzY8 A Turtle's Heart]]' by Mili has very upbeat instrumentals, but the lyrics are about the singer not wanting anything to do with love because LoveHurts, so [[SafetyInIndifference she tries to retreat from love like a turtle hiding in its shell]].

* The entire album ''In The Aeroplane Over The Sea'' by Neutral Milk Hotel definitely applies to this trope. On first listen, it's clean folk music. Then you put the pieces together and you realize it's an entire album about Anne Frank. And if that doesn't get you immediately the fact that the first song is an upbeat tune with mournful lyrics that are definitely about incest and a dysfunctional, alcoholic, suicidal parents ''will''.

** "Fond Farewell" has quicker and much more upbeat instrumentals and chords than most of Smith's works (granted, that's a ''low'' bar), paired with lyrics that are bittersweet at absolute best, as they would appear to talk about issues like a friend on the edge of death, dysfunction, and addiction. If taken most cynically, the song is mostly about addiction, and the addict in question is almost certainly fooling himself into thinking he can give his addiction up at any time and this last binge is his "fond farewell" to his habit. In the final verse the addiction is personified and calls the addict out on his attitude and inability to function in the real world or deal with his problems, which includes noting that the only solutions that the addict has ever attempted are getting high and attempting suicide. [[note]]That part hits extra hard, since the song was part of an album released posthumously after Smith ''may'' have committed suicide, which came after Smith spent years struggling with serious drug, alcohol, and mental issues.[[/note]]

The only things that you really tried

* Elliott Smith:

** "Fond Farewell" has some of the more upbeat instrumentals and chords from Smith's works (granted, that's a ''low'' bar), paired with lyrics that, even if taken at their most optimistic interpretation, are about at least one friend on the edge of death, dysfunction, and addiction. If taken most cynically, the song is mostly about addiction, and the addict in question fooling himself into thinking he can give it up at any time and this last binge is his "fond farewell" to his habit. In the final verse the addiction is personified and calls the addict out on his attitude and inability to function with the world or his problems, including noting that the only solutions that the addict has ever attempted to use to deal with his problems are getting high and attempting suicide. [[note]]That part hits extra hard, since the song was part of an album released posthumously after what might or might not have been a suicide after Smith spent years struggling with serious drug, alcohol, and mental issues.[[/note]]

-->I get//
Intrusive thoughts//
Like burning my hair off//
Like hurting somebody I love//

* Elliott Smith's song "Memory Lane", is a horribly depressing song set to a cheerful, folky tune in a major key. As if that wasn't bad enough, his voice sounds so perversely ''hopeful'' while he's singing it.("Isolation pushes past self-hatred, guilt and shame to a place where suffering is just a game.")

** Flyin' is a fun and catchy beat... and then the lyrics take a tailspin from cute and quirky to the realization that she's talking about a student who was taken advantage of by a teacher.
*** THEN you can add the popular interpretation that 'flyin' outta my window' is about drug use, and suddenly you realize that the teacher doped her up in the story when she refused and became addicted to drugs.

** ''The King Is Dead'' provides a number of these, but probably the best is "Calamity Song", an uplifting country-folk-Americana tune about the end of the world (It starts "Had a dream/You and me at the war at the end-time...", and proceeds to rhyme that with "As scores of innocents died").
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJpfK7l404I Like so]].