The Beths – Happy Unhappy —Powerpop Friday

On my quest to find more powerpop music…this band was recommended to me and I’ve been listening to them for a week or so. The Beths are a band out of New Zealand and they formed in 2015. The songs are full of good guitar hooks and with Elizabeth Stokes clever writing and voice… make them fun to listen to. They have some 90s indie sound with a little of the 60s thrown in.

Happy Unhappy is off of their debut album…Future Me Hates Me released in 2018. The members are Elizabeth Stokes(vocals, guitar)  Jonathan Pearce(guitar), Benjamin Sinclair (bass) and Ivan Luketina-Johnston (drums).

A good write up on their debut album in Rolling Stone. 

From Allmusic by Marcy Donelson

Their main songwriter, Elizabeth Stokes, also fronts the Beths, a New Zealand group that combines energized guitar riffs, melodic hooks, and harmonized backing vocals in their impulsive indie rock. Having already won fans as a live act, the band released its first album, Future Me Hates Me, in 2018.

 

Happy Unhappy

I was higher than a biplane
Then you hit me like a hurricane
I bailed out, hit the ground
Washed up in a storm drainStumbled up the driveway
With a handshake and a slow wave
Now I’m crashed out on the couch
Wondering if you feel the same‘Cause you’re in my brain taking up space
I need for remembering pins and to take out the bins
And that one particular film that that actor was in
I see your face superimposed over everything
It ain’t right
(It ain’t right, it ain’t right)‘Cause I was fine on my own
Tolling steady like a dial tone
Couldn’t you leave me I was happy unhappy
But now I’m overthrown
Wish my heart were really made of stone
And I could forget you
Like I really want to

I was living with your spare change
In the pocket of your cutaways
And I get so spent waiting on your lunch break
Broke every window pane
So I can feel the cold rain
When I lie in bed catching death trying to wash it all away‘Cause you’re in my brain taking up space
I need for delivering lies and suppressing the sighs
And for navigating the escape when I get lost in your eyes
It’s taking up all of my time just to keep it in line
It ain’t right
(It ain’t right, it ain’t right)‘Cause I was fine on my own
Tolling steady like a dial tone
Couldn’t you leave me, I was happy unhappy
But now I’m overthrown
Wish my heart were really made of stone
And I could forget you
Like I really want toI was fine on my own
Tolling steady like a dial tone
Couldn’t you leave me, I was happy unhappy
But now I’m overthrown
Wish my heart were really made of stone
And I could forget you
Like I really want toI could forget you
I could forget you
I could forget you