Lyric video: "Happy" by Pharrel Williams

Hello everyone,

This year's Oscar Awards have been, ehrrm... awarded and one of the candidates for best song was Pharrell Wiliams' "Happy" for the film "Despicable me 2". I found it interesting as an excuse to talk about several things:

1) The love of double meanings by English speakers, in this case songwriters.
2) The importance of stopping (or rather, slowing down) at the right places and how it changes meaning.
3) Using "like", that slippery dangerous word.
4) And other stuff, but that will be after you watch the video.

Honestly, I did not look at the song credits, so I don't know if Mr. Williams himself or other people wrote this song, but it is very clever. It is constantly playing with the word like, or more specifically with the expression "feel like" in contrast with feel... like "x".

The first expression as in:

"I feel like going to the cinema today."

Here "feel like" means "I would enjoy/love doing that."

The second expression as in:

"I feel like a rat in a trap."

Here "feel like something" is a comparison. You are not that something but you feel in a similar or equivalent way.

So sentences in the song can be understood as either about what someone wishes for, or the description of their feelings.

"... if you feel like a room without a a roof." (so either you are wishing you had one or your feelings can be compared to a room without a roof).

Going to my second point, we can look at this:

"... if you feel like happiness is the truth." which can be read as:

[if you feel like happiness][is the truth] (meaning: the truth is you feel like happiness, you would like to feel happy, that's what you want.)

Or:

[if you feel] [like happiness is the truth] (meaning: your feeling is equivalent or similar to thinking that happiness is the (only, most important) truth.

The most important thing about these lyrics is how all meanings are perfectly combined in a way that the message is absolutely positive and optimistic, every and any way you look at it.

Ok, so here's the video, finally. An after that, there's more to comment!

What I'm 'bout to say. Recently I was explaining my students how in words like about, the initial sound is the neutral vowel known as "schwa". Thanks Pharrell for helping me by showing how weak that vowel can be, to the point of disappearing in some varieties of colloquial English.

Sunshine she's here. He's playing with us again. Sunshine is a word used in the same way as dear, honey or other endearing terms. So it could be Sunshine! she's here! or a double-subject, nonstandard way of saying "She's here and she is like sunshine for me." 

Like I don't care. colloquial way of saying "as if I don't care".

Clap along. A phrasal verb. What does it mean? If you are familiar with go along, that means to go in parallell with something, as opposed to following someone. So the meaning here is to go along someone or something, and at the same time, clapping your hands. So walk and clap! (Which I think he does at some point in the original music video). Also, when you are doing a music performance, like a concert, if the public claps following the music, they are clapping along!

Give me all you got, don't hold it back. Make an effort, use all your strength. Show me all those bad news, I am not afraid! (Because I am happy...). Don't hold it back, don't keep any bad news for yourself.

Can't nothing bring me down: he is a rap singer! Using inversion for emphasis! (=Nothing can't bring me down).

And finally I leave you with two more versions of the song. Enjoy!