Optimism in Music.

Yes, written by Nick Lowe. Great song, fantastic performance -- in sum a classic gem, and as I suggested above one of those depressing songs that's nonetheless capable of making you feel good when you hear it -- but "optimistic"? Hey, there are some (what I consider to be) off-the-mark picks in this thread, in different ways, but to me this one -- a lucid and searingly angry indictment of the world we've made and our attitudes about it, that offers no hope of change even as it acknowledges and sympathizes with our potential to see the problems -- represents the absolute antithesis of optimism. Not that there's anything wrong with that :-)

Without stretching my brain for more than a second -- there must be hundreds of them ("Let's Spend The Night Together" by the Stones being one) -- two of the more optimistic songs I can think of offhand are "Hey Jude" by The Beatles and "Ooh Child" by The Five Stairsteps (written by a guy named Stan Vincent, a pop producer of whom I know very little). Boiled down the latter has few lyrics:

Ooh child things are gonna get easier
Ooh child things'll get brighter
Someday we'll get it together and we'll get it undone
Someday when the world is much brighter
Someday we're gonna walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Someday when the world is much lighter
Ooh child things are gonna get easier
Ooh child things'll get brighter
Right now

As in any optimistic song, epitomized the Beatles and the Beach Boys, the uplifting feel of the music plays an integral part in giving you that sense of hope. But at the same time, as illustrated by the preceding example, there must be an underlying implication of sorrow associated with the current condition to contrast with the feeling of optimism about the future. (Indeed the compelling repeated guitar lick from "Ooh Child" is tinged with bittersweetness, and the implied but unanswered question hangs in the background: What happened that must be "undone"? It doesn't matter; the healing will be accomplished in time.) You need something to triumph over -- simply being blatantly upbeat about everything all the time doesn't qualify.

Then again, who hasn't ever gone in a big way for a song that's just so poignant or melancholy, but with grace and not merely wallowing in self pity, that it makes you feel perversely wonderful by giving your soul solace? Along the lines of "Waterloo Sunset" by The Kinks for example. You just think, hey, if someone else can feel that way too, and make something beautiful out of it, then there must be hope of good in the world. But most songwriters who sit down to write a piece that's simply sad, or simply glad, usually come up with a piece of sentimental dreck. As the man is reputed to have once said, all great poetry is at root about death, even if it's ostensibly about love...

"Red Rubber Ball" -- Paul Simon (performed by The Cyrkle)

Again, I can't see "(Sitting On) The Dock Of The Bay" as being considered anything like optimistic:

Sitting in the morning sun
I'll be sitting when the evening comes
Watching the ships roll in
And I watch 'em roll away again

[Refrain]
Sitting on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
I'm just sitting on the dock of the bay
Wasting time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the 'Frisco bay
'Cause I had nothin to live for
And look like nothing's gonna come my way

So I'm just...
[Refrain]

Look like nothing's gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I'll remain the same

Sittin here resting my bones
And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I'm just...
[Refrain]

Resigned maybe, aimless and at a loss, a touch bitter, slapped down by life -- but optimistic? Yeah, the opening stanza could be interpreted as sounding fairly idyllic if you don't read much into it, and I admit that whistling tends to sound inherently optimistic, but that's not all there is to the song. Well, then again at least half the populace thinks "Every Breath You Take" is a love song (actually about divorce, it's routinely played at weddings) and "Born In The USA" is a flag-waving patriotic anthem, so go figure. However, you won't get any argument from me that the effect music (or any art) has on people is probably more significant than the artist's lyrical intent, especially when that artist has wrapped it up in an attractive melody and compelling arrangement.

Sounds good to me, too (in both senses). Sorry to be such a thread-nanny, the debating bug is just my nature. Personally, I find "Dock Of The Bay" to provide as much or more spiritual succor than songs that truly are optimistic.