99 Luftballons is upbeat and fun, and about some balloons inadvertently kicking off a cataclysmic war that leaves the world in ruins.

Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks

Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind is the usual one I see brought up.

Push by Matchbox 20 and Possum Kingdom by Toadies are arguable ones.

Also, Richard Cheese covers a lot of raunchy and dark stuff in a vegas lounge singer style. Rape Me sung in a cheesy upbeat tone is a trip.

Born in the USA

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

pumped up kicks

Hey Ya - Outkast

Hey Ya

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"

Hey Ya by Outkast.

Also pretty much everything I have ever heard by Steely Dan.

Rockin in the Free World by Neil Young

Semi-charmed Life

Pumped up kicks

Under the bridge Red Hot Chilli Peppers

The only 2 songs I could think of, Pumped Up Kicks, and 99 Luftballons/99 Red Balloons were already brought up. So I had to think of some different songs. And I can't. Looked through a bunch of songs on my phone and back of some of my CD cases and I can't think of any right now.

Closest I can think of was just a video of someone reacting to the Japanese vocaloid song 「ごめんね ごめんね」 ( I'm sorry I'm sorry )by Kikuo and not knowing what the song meant until looking up the lyrics. Even then, that's not a very upbeat song.

Edit:

I thought about "Belong" by R.E.M., but I would say it's near upbeat but not quite there. Also, the lyrics are more cryptic and confusing to dissect than depressing in my opinion.

Edit 2:

Wouldn't say it's quite upbeat either, but Mighty K.C. from For Squirrels as well. Not quite upbeat but definitely depressing lyrics considering it's about death.

Hard Times - Paramore first thing I thought of

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.

• 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.

People forget that Today by The Smashing Pumpkins is literally about suicide.

A good chunk of They Might Be Giants' discography.

Homeless Bleak Despair is about what's in the title.

Don't Let's Start "Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful"

My Man is about being paralyzed.

That just scratches the surface.

Little talks - of monsters and men
It sounds very chill and upbeat but it’s about the loss of a loved one

Bad Moon Rising by Creedence.

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

I don't like Mondays by boomtown rats

https://open.spotify.com/track/7JFoeg0arawADjGcz9gBnq

Quite a chill and happy song about a school shooting

• Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles
• Some Nights by Fun (and the music video really reinforces it)
• I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers
• a bunch of different songs by P!nk
• Weird Al's presidential debate autotune songs ("Bad Hombres, Nasty Women" from 2016, "WE'RE ALL DOOMED" from 2020, and "Deja Vu (But Worse)" from 2024)

I Am A Rock by Simon and Garfunkel

A winter's day  
In a deep and dark December

I am alone  
Gazing from my window to the streets below  
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow
I am a rock I am an island

I've built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain
I am a rock I am an island

Don't talk of love
Well I've heard the word before
It's sleeping in my memory
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died
If I never loved I never would have cried
I am a rock I am an island

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock I am an island

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

pretty much anything by third eye blind

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

90% of ska/ska punk music is like this. A few examples:

"The Science of Selling Yourself Short" - Less Than Jake

"Beer" - Reel Big Fish

"Struggler" and "I Don't Love You Anymore" - Bomb the Music Industry!

"The Last Bell I Will Ever Hear", "1-800-ALARM-ME" and "Last on my List" - The Arrogant Sons of Bitches

"Ska Dream" and "Checkerboard Ashtray" - Jeff Rosenstock

"A Better Place, a Better Time" and "As the Footsteps Die Out Forever" - Streetlight Manifesto

Ring around the rosey

And

Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear

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.

My Worst Enemy - Lit

Man, who is probably an alcoholic, wakes up the next day from a bender to find his girlfriend has left him.

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

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

Lyrics

Every Stromae's songs.
It's always funny to see non-french-speaking people being so hyped by Stromae's songs, like they think it's joyful af and all... While his songs lyrics are litterally about :

• a man who drinks and dances a lot in order to forget his shitty life ( Alors on danse )
• a song about his father who was killed during Rwanda's genocide ( Papaoutai )
• other songs about suicide, cancer, breakups, addictions, depression etc... But always with an upbeat melody !

Mark Knopfler has quite a few. Postcards from Paraguay. Quality Shoe. Romeo and Juliet. Boom Like That. It's a thing with him - contrasting the music with the theme.