Ask Lemmy

Vamos a la playa - super catchy totally 80s pop song that was everywhere in amusement parks ..... and it's about nuclear hellscape.

Club America by The Cure

Semi-Charmed Life is the first thing that always comes to my mind

Rockin in the Free World by Neil Young

Born in the USA

Timothy by The Buoys is a very happy song about men trapped in a mine collapse cannibalizing each other to survive.

hey ya -- Outkast It's about relationships that aren't working out, but you still stay together.

" thank God for Mom and Dad / for sticking two together cause we don't know how"

Then later

" are we so in denial when we know we're not happy here? / y'all don't want to hear me, y'all just want to dance"

Has anybody mentioned Joy Division yet?

I always found The Scientist by Coldplay to be a pretty upbeat song about the death of a loved one. And Viva la Vida upbeat, and all about the fall from grace.

Bullet by Hollywood undead.

Singing about killing himself in a super upbeat song, even has kids at the end going "I wish that I could fly, way up in the sky", the part where he was singing about jumping off a skyscraper.

No Rain by Blind Melon... literally a song about deep depression with upbeat music

I think I have the best answer here: Gwar - Rock N Roll Never Felt So Good

Lyrics

Mack the Knife https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ0OOHLWo4w

Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People.

Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen. It's about realizing that you've peaked and your best days are behind you.

pumped up kicks

Mmmmbop

The Macarena I'd about a woman cheating on her BF getting drafted into the military with 2 other guys

Which is pretty intense for a song they taught to kids in grade school

Talking Heads - Life During Wartime and Once in a Lifetime spring to mind.

It's probably easier to list the Talking Heads songs that are not upbeat and depressing.

Bad Moon Rising by Creedence.

It's about the apocalypse, but you wouldn't know it from how upbeat it is.

I think Enola Gay by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark is a perfect example.

It sounds upbeat and fun but it's about the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Some of the lyrics are incredibly powerful and I still get chills when I hear it.

• El Fusilado - Chumbawumba. A happy clappy sunshiney recounting of the life and times of one Wenceslao Moguel, a soldier of Pancho Villa's who was captured, executed by firing squad, and lived to tell the tale. Short version: He got knocked down, but he got up again.
• Scarborough Fair - Folk; often associated with Simon and Garfunkel. I'm stretching the definition of "upbeat" here, but it baffles me that this is counted by anyone as a love song. It's a song about two ex-lovers expressing how much they hate each other by assigning each other impossible tasks as conditions for taking them back. He says "tell her I'll take her back if she sews me a shirt with no seams, washes it in a dry well and hangs it to dry on a vine with no thorns." She says "O RLY? Well you tell him that if he finds an acre of land between the ocean and the beach, sews it all with one seed and reaps it with a leather scythe, I'll take him back. And I'll even make him his damn shirt." It's a bitter song.
• Another Day In Paradise - Phil Collins. Again I'm stretching the definition of "upbeat," it's slow in tempo, kind of heavy, but it has that big sexy hook, manages to feel kind of breezy, it feels designed for first dances at wedding receptions, and the refrain is "It's just another day for you and me in paradise." It feels like a competitor to Fields of Gold by Sting. It's not! The verses are about the humanity crushing power of abject poverty.

Class A Team

Walking on broken glass - Annie Lennox

Nothing but Flowers by Talking Heads is a cheerful song about post-apocalyptic life.