Happiness

Album: Being Funny In A Foreign Language (2022)
Charted: 46
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, The 1975 frontman Matty Healy reflects on the utter joy of falling head-in-heels in love. It's unlike any other love he's ever experienced, as the girl is perfect in every way. Such is Healy's infatuation with this Venus he "would go blind just to see you" and would "go too far to have you near." However, doubts creep in and the singer worries he's messing up and won't be able to keep her. That would be catastrophic, as after this girl he'll never be able to love again.
  • "Happiness" came out of a jam session. "There's literally loads of us in the room on that track. Locked eyes... Doesn't really have much structure." Healy told Apple Music's Zane Lowe. "It came through jamming, and we haven't done that in like in years. So we just wanted this record to be really like a captured moment and not be too constructed and even produced that much."

    "We did it in like a day or so," Healy added. "And it's us having fun."
  • Healy and 1975 drummer George Daniel co-produced the glittery track with Jack Antonoff. The American producer fronts Bleachers and has also worked with Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Rey and Florence + The Machine.
  • Healy is a fan of Antonoff's work with Del Rey and invited the producer to their studio. "Me and Jack were just like talking about music and then those conversations, me, Jack and George," the singer told NME. "And then those conversations became about a 1975 record that felt more live. And then I was a bit like, 'Well, why are we talking about this? Why don't we just do this?'"
  • The Samuel Bradley-directed music video shows The 1975 performing the track in a club, as various uninterested patrons lounge around the space. Bradley also filmed the clip for the band's previous single, "Part Of The Band."
  • The 1975 performed "Happiness" live for the first time during a 16-song set on August 20, 2022 at the Zozomarine Stadium and Makuhari Messe in Tokyo. The concert was the first of the two shows they played as part of the Japanese Summer Sonic Festival.
  • The intro is a demo by dance-pop producer DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ, who embedded a slowed-down sample of an old Healy interview into a track. The 1975 frontman didn't know it was him speaking until the final cut of the record. "I just thought it was a guy who's got a weird English accent," he told Pitchfork.

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