Happy Pills

Album: …Little Broken Hearts (2012)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This is the first single by singer-songwriter Norah Jones, from her fifth album, …Little Broken Hearts. Jones premiered the song on February 28, 2012 via her Facebook page on the SoundCloud and it was released on March 6, 2012.
  • …Little Broken Hearts was entirely produced by Danger Mouse (real name: Brian Burton) and recorded at Burton's Los Angeles studio during the fall of 2011. The record was co-written by Jones and Burton, with the pair handling the majority of the instrumentals. Jones teamed up with the producer after she contributed vocals to his Rome project with Daniele Luppi.
  • The song surprised Jones and Burton from the moment they wrote it. "We both were like 'Oh my God, this is awesome' at first and then went away and listened over the weekend, explained Jones. "We didn't know if it fit on the record. But I couldn't stop singing it, and neither could Brian. Eventually we decided it was too much fun, it had to be there."
  • Jones and Burton were about halfway through recording Little Broken Hearts when they recorded this song. Whilst musically it's one of the few upbeat tunes on the set, lyrically it finds Jones singing of emancipating herself from a relationship and finding that she's better off alone. She told the story of the song to Spinner: "When we started doing 'Happy Pills,' he leaned over to me - I think I was getting grumpy waiting for lunch; we were always starving when we got there - we were just kind of waiting around to eat, and he looked over at me and starting going, 'Nah nah nah nah' just to kind of mess with me, I think. I said, 'Well that sounds nice,' and we started working on it. It was just really happy sounding, which was a little different from the rest of the album - not that the album is depressing, but the songs are a little darker on the rest of the album. It was very happy and it wouldn't get out of our heads, so we decided to sort of make the lyrics a little more on the dark side, maybe even mean or kind of silly, but in a mean way. It kind of was a nice juxtaposition between the happy music and the darker lyrics."

Comments: 1

  • Erica from Texarkana One of my favorites by Norah Jones!
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Allen Toussaint - "Southern Nights"

Allen Toussaint - "Southern Nights"They're Playing My Song

A song he wrote and recorded from "sheer spiritual inspiration," Allen's didn't think "Southern Nights" had hit potential until Glen Campbell took it to #1 two years later.

Richard Marx

Richard MarxSongwriter Interviews

Richard explains how Joe Walsh kickstarted his career, and why he chose Hazard, Nebraska for a hit.

Commercials

CommercialsFact or Fiction

Was "Ring Of Fire" really used to sell hemorrhoid cream?

John Doe of X

John Doe of XSongwriter Interviews

With his X-wife Exene, John fronts the band X and writes their songs.

Yoko Ono

Yoko OnoSongwriter Interviews

At 80 years old, Yoko has 10 #1 Dance hits. She discusses some of her songs and explains what inspired John Lennon's return to music in 1980.

Loreena McKennitt

Loreena McKennittSongwriter Interviews

The Celtic music maker Loreena McKennitt on finding musical inspiration, the "New Age" label, and working on the movie Tinker Bell.