Pharrell's "Happy"

Submission 24,784

About

"Happy" is a 2013 pop song written and produced by American sing-songwriter Pharrell Williams for the soundtrack of the 2013 computer-animated children's film Despicable Me 2.

Origin

The song was initially released on June 18th, 2013 as part of the soundtrack for Despicable Me 2 on and later re-introduced as the lead single for his sophomore album GIRL released on March 3rd, 2014. The music video for “Happy,” which features cameo appearances of the minions from the film, was first released via the official PharrellVEVO YouTube Channel^[1] on June 18th, 2013, followed by its debut on the artist's non-label YouTube channel iamOTHER^[2] on November 21st.

As of April 2014, the video has gained over 202.5 million views. The song remains at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart^[3] where it has been for four months.

Spread

On November 22nd, 2013, iamOTHER uploaded a one-hour music video that featured "Happy," playing on a loop titled "Pharrell Williams – Happy (12AM)," as the first installment in what they dubbed "The World's First 24-Hour Music Video." The remaining hour long videos for 1AM to 11PM were uploaded to the YouTube channel between November 23rd and December 15th.

On March 17th, Pentatonix uploaded a cover of "Happy," to their YouTube channel.^[8] As of April 2014, the video has gained more than 6.4 million views.

In celebrating the International Happiness Day^[7] on March 20th, Williams asked fans to upload videos of themselves being happy with the hashtag #HAPPYDAY and submit it to his site 24hoursofhappiness^[9], which features a button that takes visitors directly to a donation page for the United Nations'^[10] Central Emergency Relief Fund. On March 20th, iamOTHER uploaded a compilation of the best user submissions. As of April 2014, the video has gained over 800,000 views.

On April 8th, 2014, Buzzfeed posted an image titled "How Sick You Are Of Pharrell’s “Happy” Summed Up Perfectly In One Graph," which represented the backlash against how overplayed the song seemed.

Trump Rally Controversy

On October 28th, 2018, President Donald Trump held a rally in Indiana, following a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead and 26 injured. During the rally, the song "Happy" by Pharrell was played.

The following day, Pharrell sent a cease and deist via his lawyer. The letter states,^[11] "On the day of the mass murder of 11 human beings at the hands of a deranged 'nationalist,' you played his song 'Happy' to a crowd at a political event in Indiana. There was nothing 'happy' about the tragedy inflicted upon our country on Saturday and no permission was granted for your use of this song for this purpose."

That day, Hollywood Reporter editor Eriq Gardner tweeted^[12] a portion of the letter. They captioned it, "OWZA. Check out this cease and desist sent by Pharrell Williams to Donald Trump for using 'Happy' on 'the day of the mass murder of 11 human beings,' as the letter puts it." The post received more than 15,000 retweets and 43,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

Notable Examples

Parodies

On January 28th, 2014, Pharrell's YouTube channel iamOTHER uploaded a video titled "Hatty," (below, left) which features a clip from "Happy," with a picture of his much mocked Grammy's hat photoshopped over half of his body. As of April 2014, the video has gained over 440,000 views. On February 18th, YouTube channel Terabrite^[4] uploaded a video titled "Flappy," (below, right) which featured a song about the mobile game Flappy Bird, set to the tune of "Happy." As of April 2014, the video has gained over 300,000 views.

On March 18th, 2014, YouTube channel The Pet Collective^[6] uploaded a video titled, "Pharrell – Happy (Puppy & Doggy Version)," (below, left) which featured a video of happy dogs playing to a song about dogs sung to the tune of "Happy." As of April 2014, the video has gained over 700,000 views. On March 25th, YouTube channel House of Halo^[5] uploaded a video which featured the music video for "Happy" (below, right) with the music removed so the people featured appeared to be dancing in silence. As of April 2014, the video has over 1.5 million views.