If You Wanna Be Happy

In mid-December I started using Spotify for the first time. Before Spotify I always relied on my own library of music which transferred from device to device via iTunes. This has been, to say the least, cumbersome, and also prevented me from exposing myself to much other music. Also at one point during a transfer from one computer to another I mysteriously lost about half of my music from CDs long given away, so there was no hope of recovery except through great expense.

I dabbled here and there with Apple Music and Prime Music, neither of which really did what I wanted nor gave me access to all of the songs I wanted. So finally, desperate to listen to a more expansive Christmas playlist and not the same 15 songs over and over again, I decided to give Spotify a try. And it was the most fun I’ve ever had building a Christmas playlist. While there were a few versions of songs that I couldn’t find on Spotify, they were few and far between, and by the time Christmas was concluded I had created a robust playlist of Christmas music that made me really happy.

In the new year I decided to keep my spirits up by building more playlists with the help of Spotify. After following some of my favorite artists and liking a whole bunch of songs, I started using their AI DJ despite my general distrust of anything associated with artificial intelligence. Based on the artists I followed and the songs I had already been listening to, the DJ played songs and artists that I already liked or things in similar styles. This resulted in a lot of Christmas music coming up because my first and only playlist was all Christmas music, but it did also play quite a bit of music that I had forgotten about or new songs I hadn’t heard that fit my vibe. It was thoroughly enjoyable to have this DJ spinning for me all day while I worked, occasionally redirecting the DJ when he got off-track inexplicably offering me modern country music or circling back to Christmas yet again. Like, come on dude, I’m trying to get past my Christmas hangover, please stop bringing it up, ya jerk.

In the midst of one afternoon while tapping away at the computer and bopping along to the music, a familiar tune came on. It was a Jimmy Soul song “If You Wanna Be Happy” which I hadn’t heard since college. I loved that song back then and still knew all the words so I began to sing along.

The further the song progressed, the more horrified I became. If you aren’t familiar with the song, here is the chorus:

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life,

Never make a pretty woman your wife

So for my personal point of view

Get an ugly girl to marry you

Charming. But wait, it gets better. According to the song, “A pretty woman makes her husband look small, and very often causes his downfall. On the other hand, “An ugly woman cooks meals on time, she’ll always give you peace of mind.”

This song was a #1 hit in 1963 and it was based off a song called “Ugly Woman” which was recorded in 1934. And to be fair it is, as the kids would say, a total bop. It is super catchy and happy and fun and easy to dance around to. But as far as songs in line to be one’s personal anthem, this definitely should not be one of them. I was very sad to remember upon hearing this song again that it was, in fact, one of my personal anthems in high school and college.

Many is the time that I drove around blasting this song, vigorously singing along. This was because of how happy and bouncy the song is, but more importantly, and more shamefully, I also fully felt and believed in these lyrics. Oh, Young Megan. Why did you hate yourself so much?

(An equally relevant question for Current Megan, but she’s making slow progress.)

Some things feel more true if you sing them. On Easter in church singing “Christ The Lord is Risen Today” I can feel the “Ha-ah-ah-ah-ah-le-lu-u-jah”s coursing through my body, especially if the congregation is singing happily and not sleepily. There are certain lyrics that when spoken don’t hit as hard as they do when sung. Some things just sound unhinged when spoken, but set them to music and it’s a party. There are even some lyrics that I will sing along with very cautiously in order to avoid them becoming true. Example: when I am listening to “American Pie” I never hit too hard on the “This’ll be the day that I die” parts, just in case God overhears and decides to take me literally.

I remember singing along, loud and proud, to “If You Wanna Be Happy” and firmly believing every word I was singing. I’m certain I did this in front of other people too, most specifically my boyfriend at the time. I wanted him to hear this song and me singing it and know that I was telling him I was a good catch even though I wasn’t super hot. And I remember thinking at the time that embracing this song and what it said actually meant I had higher self-esteem because, although not pretty, I would be a better spouse than a more traditionally pretty woman.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, YOUNG MEGAN??? What is wrong with you????

Let us break down the problems here, shall we?

First of all, beauty is not a binary state. It’s not a yes or no, it’s subjective. And it is very much in the eye of the beholder. Something that attracts or appeals to one person could very well repel someone else. Also, societal concepts of beauty change over time. Look at women’s eyebrows: in the 90s super thin eyebrows were a thing, now it’s thick and full eyebrows. I’m sure within another decade or so it will switch back again for no discernable reason other than that is what is popular at the time.

Secondly, external beauty is irrelevant in most cases. I’m sure there are some people who are super mean and get away with behaving badly because they are exceedingly attractive. In fact I’ve known people like this, but the people I’ve known like this I firmly believe would have been toxic even if not for their looks. Their behavior does not all stem from their beauty. Likewise I’ve met some really unpleasant people who were not, to my mind, attractive. It’s not how you look that determines what kind of person you are or, in this specific case, what kind of spouse you would be. This song assumes that all pretty women take advantage of their beauty and are the worse for it, while also assuming that all ugly women know how ugly they are and therefore know they have to earn love through cooking.

Third: if having delicious meals on time is the most important thing to you, GET A COOK, NOT A SPOUSE.

Fourth: the fact that I sang this loudly and probably often in front of my boyfriend and he never once said, “but you are pretty” is quite a large red flag and one of the many reasons I’m glad that ended. (For the record: he’s not a bad guy, just not at all the right guy for me.)

Fifth: being a wife is not the only thing a woman can aspire to, obviously. This song implies otherwise.

Sixth, and perhaps the most sad: I have never actually thought of myself as ugly deep down. While I don’t have any delusions about my level of beauty, I do believe myself to be a pretty girl. I get away without wearing makeup 99% of the time and only look like a corpse in certain light. My skin is blessedly most often clear and while I don’t like my nose from a profile view, from straight on it looks fine. Also, I have killer eyes that change colors based on what I’m wearing. Not many people can say that. Ever since I started paying attention to the way I looked (which was way too young, by the way, but that’s just the world we live in), I have always been able to find something about my face or my person that I’ve liked.

And yet despite this, I have long struggled to let myself actually think that I am pretty. I cannot have other people thinking that I think that I’m pretty. I will actively declare my ugliness, put on weird faces/voices/outfits to draw attention away from my features, and if I do say something positive about my looks, it is always as a joke. I also have a really hard time with other people commenting on my appearance, especially with positive comments. I am more used to and more comfortable with negative comments; I am armed for them as one might be for battle. But compliments take me by surprise and I never know how to react; I usually blow them off with a joke. It has been a long and hard road with my therapist to get me to a point where I simply say “thank you” if someone says something nice about me. My instinct is to deny the compliment, tell them why they are wrong, tell them something bad about myself to balance out the nice thing they said, or give them a compliment in return to deflect the attention off of myself.

Needless to say, hearing “If You Wanna Be Happy” again brought up a LOT of stuff. But I have to say most of it is actually good. Because while I do still experience record lows in the self esteem category, it is better than it was. In high school when I first heard this song I loved it and claimed it as my own, believing that the lyrics would make people see my value as a person even while I needed them all to see me as ugly. Now I hear it and my brain automatically starts listing all the problems and all the reasons why this song is not my personal anthem and never should have been. While I’m still working on the way I treat myself, I can happily say that I am past the point where other people’s opinions of my appearance matter to me. I look how I look and if I’m content with it then, end scene.

All that being said, “If You Wanna Be Happy” is still a catchy song even though the lyrics are trash. And I did like it on Spotify, so it’s likely the DJ will play it for me again. But the next time I dance around to the beat it will be because I like the music, and not because I believe the words.