Portions for Foxes: Marykate O'Neil

"Portions for Foxes" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song by a woman or a band led by a woman. See the introduction for more.

Here's another obscure one, another song that spoke to me really strongly at the time and that holds up all these years later. I don't know what else this singer/songwriter did - I have this one 2008 EP, and nothing else by her.

(One quick Google later: she's still out there, making both music and paintings. I'm so happy to see that.)

This week, the song I want to champion is Happy by Marykate O'Neil.

The title is ironic.

I used to have dreams to accomplish great things
Now all I wanna be is happy
I used to dig deep, never get any sleep
Now all I wanna be is happy

The lyrics could be sarcastic, with a different presentation. (It was co-written by Jill Sobule and Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, two people who know sarcastic well.) But it doesn't come across that way at all: it's stark and honest, from the point of view of a person who used to have dreams and hopes and goals...and lost all that, for reasons she won't or can't say.

All I wanna be is happy is the repeated line - basically every other line, the whole song. It comes across as a plea, the singer running through all the things she's changed, all the ways her life has contracted. It doesn't come across as saying she is happy now- just that's all that matters now, the only thing she can still aim for.

You can take that as a lesson, however you want. And decide how much you want to be - or can be - happy, yourself.