ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin

When I was a kid, I think I somehow conflated Bobby McFarrin with Raffi and I was stunned to learn as an adult that he was respected jazz musician and not, in fact, a children's performer.

I only knew this song as the second song that Big Mouth Billy Bass sang.

Does anyone else remember hearing this song for the first time by singing slugs in Flushed Away, the 2006 Aardman movie starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet as sewer rats?

When I was a kid I loved that the Big Mouth Billy Bass sang this whenever I walked in front of it

Robin Williams was Bobby McFerrin's neighbor which is why he is in the video. Robin could only be on set a couple hours cus of his schedule.

Well holy crap. I had no idea that Joel Veitch (of Spongmonkeys infamy)'s "Thinking About Your Axe Wound" was a parody of a Bobby McFerrin song.

My mom quotes this song a lot, but I didn't even realize it until I listened to it.

ah another song from VH1's 40 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever list, never liked this song personally, I just find it boring.

I somehow caught on to McFerrin before this song and saw him live, which was cool. I got a special thrill out of seeing my music theory class when the teacher played “Opportunity” for a class that had a bunch of serious singers, and it blew their freaking minds. Oh - “Cocktail” isn’t mediocre. That movie suuuuucked. I couldn’t resist making MST3K-style comments to the two girls with whom I was seeing it, to the point at which one of them turned around and punched me in the chest.

Theres a Simpsons episode with this in it, where Lisa is on antidepressants - its used very satirically, I think you'd enjoy it and might be worth mentioning. 'The Good The Sad & The Drugly', or at least a clip of it... From Lisa's perspective, everything unpleasant gets covered by smiley face stickers in the clip, including Barney barfing.

this might not be an error but when you mention that bobby ferrin played with "artists like herbie hancock" (4:49) it SOUNDS like you're about to list more ppl (maybe chick corea, tony williams, grover washington?).

I was 11 when this came out, learning that he did every sound on the track earned my respect, even if I was not at all into jazz sounds at that age.

The memory I have of this song is in Army Basic Training, 1989. A drill sergeant sang this song over and over while making us do 500 sit-ups. I have never liked the song since then. Not really Bobby's fault.

I cannot imagine ever choosing to listen to this song as an adult, but I have a positive association with it and loved learning more about it. When I was a kid, I had like 2 cassettes and this song was on one of them, so I loved it. Although I thought the line was "the landlord says your rent is late, it might be time to immigrate" until just now, because that was what I thought it was when I was a child and I never questioned it....

When I was a kid (mid-nineties) I was convinced this song was from the fifties. I guess the background "doo-doo, doo-doo" sounded like doo-wop to me? I definitely wouldn't have pinned it as being from 1988.

I remember when the "Cocktail" soundtrack came out and the record company expected some of the then-A-listers on the album - John Mellencamp, Starship, er, Robbie Nevil - to have the hits. Instead it was the legendarily inconsistent washed-up sixties band and the a capella jazz musician.

Very minor error, but the beginning of the video says, "A pop song review" instead of, "A one-hit wonder retrospective".

I loved this song when I was a kid, and then as I got older gradually started thinking of it as a satire. My mom had a copy of the album, and that was probably the first time I heard some of those older 60s songs, as covers by Bobby McFerrin. Looking at the full music video, I started wondering if maybe the version of Bobby wearing a white tuxedo with no shoes is a reference to the other version of him that jumps out a window and loses his shoes - like the version in white is a ghost, maybe? I'm probably reading too much into it, though.

The first (and probably last) OHW entry that I've actually seen perform live. As conductor of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

According to legend, back in the ‘80s McFerrin performed at my alma mater, a tiny Mennonite college in Ohio. At one point between songs, he mentioned that he’d heard about how good Mennonites are at four-part harmony, and he asked them to sing him something. The audience sang That One Hymn Every Mennonite Knows, and apparently he was very moved.

In your intro I had a little bit of difficulty hearing the year, I think it was 1988 but it's a little difficult to read that line. Other than that, you missed what I feel is an extremely obvious "Fast Car" joke with his follow-up "Drive" given that he beat the song for the Grammy, but that might just be me.

19:20 small note, idk how much this matters and in any case it's clear you're not making light of the situation, but it's considered good practice to say 'died by suicide' rather than 'kill [them]self'

This song would have been a big hit in the 1960s. Hippies would have eaten it up. I didn't even realize it was released in 1988. Robin Williams is perfect for the video. McFerrin wearing a tuxedo while barefoot is a weird juxtaposition.

13:38 Three Little Birds maybe?

he's gotta do Bad Day by Daniel Powter eventually right

I was in high school when this came out and my mom bought the album. I think I appreciated the album more than I liked it. I mean, the man’s immense talent was obvious to even dumb 16-year old me. I just don’t ever remember putting on that album myself.

Fun story: My dad's high school girlfriend and Bobby McFerrin were step-siblings for a few years. They still keep in touch, and he's apparently a stand-up man IRL.

This video has made me happy.

It's nice to see just how goddamned talented Bobby McFerrin is.

To be honest, I think there's a certain melancholy sound to the track, and is about the singer dealing with depression, anxiety and so forth. It absolutely reads to me as a reaction to somebody telling him to "Cheer up, it may never happen".

this would be an all-timer episode BUT FOR omitting the fact that McFerrin also did the a capella music for Knick Knack, the all-time best Pixar short, with one of its main strengths being his score

I think Bobby and Robin Williams were good friends, and his being in the video went from being a favor for a couple minutes to him hanging around the set all day. And their friendship led to Robin bringing Bobby into the studio when he recorded Come Together for George Martin.

"He was the conductor of the San Francisco symphony" was a version of "he was a big deal in the non-talent portion of the recording industry" OHW life story that we haven't heard before. Thanks for doing this one, Todd, this is my favourite type of OHW, where the hit is a fluke in their otherwise fascinating non-pop life story and career.

I'm surprised there are no pictures of Alfred E. Neuman

In my never ending quest to embarrass myself on message boards, I have to admit that I bought the cassette single to this when I was 14 and even now I can't bring myself to hate it. Guess I got in just under the I'm Supposed To Think This Is The Worst Thing Ever line.

I'm surprised the Family Guy clip of McFerrin falling down the stairs wasn't shown.

As a long-time fan, this is the first time I have heard you yell in a review in years. It was a weird experience.

Like many people, I completely missed that this is a fully acapella track and my mind is a little blown.

For the record, this is basically what would happen if Jacob Collier had a #1 smash today.

I too have fond memories of listening to this album as a 5 year old, and similar to MJS we had a singing fish Big Mouth Billy Bass that would sing this at the press of a button. My were the 90s strange. So glad you could give an overview of his incredibly successful jazz career. And to bring it back full circle on a cappella, Pentatonix actually covered this song in mashup form on their Christmas album That's Christmas To Me: Winter Wonderland with Don't Worry Be Happy, sung by Tori Kelly and Pentatonix.

I primarily know this song from the cover by... Big Mouth Billy Bass.

Another notable "after the big hit" moment: McFerrin appears on George Martin's record In My Life, a collection of Beatles covers organized by the legendary producer. He sings the third verse, the solo, and much of the backing track on "Come Together" with lead vocals by... Robin Williams!

Great work, Todd. Congrats on 99 OHW’s! As an aside, is it supposed to say “Pop Song Review” in the beginning? Other than that, no problems that I could see!

One other candidate for his second song was the score he did for the 1989 Pixar short Knick Knack. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned, given that (being a Pixar film) it's probably the most remembered Bobby McFerrin tune that isn't Don't Worry Be Happy. He improvised it all while watching a rough cut of the film, and during the end credits (which were just "bla bla bla" over and over as a placeholder, since this was a rough cut) he just sang the bla bla blas anyway.

You forgot to mention that he soundtracked the Pixar short Knick Knack in 1989. He also contributed the beat to an En Vogue song in 2000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_8yIM5UWNY

I saw Bobby McFerrin perform live when I was starting to get into jazz and was blown away. I suspect that if I had been alive when this song came out, I would have had a very different experience with his music.

As a kid I remember seeing a performance of "Wizard of Oz on Ice" where he did all the voices

i didn't even realize that the entire song was acapella until your told me how virtuosic of a jazz singer he was... that's how good of a jazz singer he was

"How could someone live in a world where 'Don't Worry Be Happy' didn't exist". I'm not sure if I can answer that Todd, since I was born the year this song hit #1.

I think you cut the video a little late at the end, there - did you mean for the bat to be audible when you dropped it? It punctuates the video in a bit of an aggressive fashion, especially given the ultimate conclusion you reach. As for the content, I've got three remarks. The first is that, in terms of pop culture cachet, it is impossible to underestimate just how influential Bill Cosby and The Cosby Show were in the mid 80s. I can almost guarantee that it was involvement in The Cosby Show which led to McFerrin's single getting airplay at first. I don't have a citation for this, but it's just one of those things which, if you were there, just makes sense to you. The second is that part of the reason it hit the way it did was the fact that it was an a capella track. Back then, we didn't have Pentatonix or Rockapella lingering on the fringes of pop culture. Some bands experimented with it, but it felt like an affectation, not "the thing they did". McFerrin surprised people enough that he was getting articles in Newsweek about who he was and what he did (though heck if I can find them now - but I remember that they happened). The third thing is that for some reason I strongly remember "Drive My Car" as his follow-up song. Now, it may just be that it was the other song on the album that I really liked, but the rest of the tracks don't stick out to me. Again, though, I have no citation for this.

Is the start of the video missing the sponsored by Audible thing? Not sure if that was deliberate.

I think McFerrin's voice is on a frequency that perfectly raises my mood, cuz I could hate the world and still love his singing. Never doesn't hit for me...

Smashed it. Fantastic episode; always love it when you get a bit more philosophical about music.

Thank you for doing this one. I owned the Dont Worry album back in the day, and it was wonderful to hear you say nice things about 'Drive', which I loved.

I used to work at a local arcade that would play nothing but 80s music. This song would play every single day while I got yelled at by a bunch of pissy suburbanites for enforcing mask mandates. So you’re 100% right about it hitting BAD when you’re not in the mood.

I find it funny Bush Sr used this song in his campaign despite Bobby being a democrat, in fact his manager wrote a letter to the campaign complaining about its unauthorised usage that I find hilarious

Those videos from the Simple Pleasures album look like they could have been part of Pee Wee's Playhouse. And I LOVE this song - Bobby McFerrin is wildly talented even if the song got overplayed (seriously, in the late 80s you could get a laugh on a sitcom just quoting the song). I remember listening to a public radio station decades later and hearing him referenced as the conductor on songs. He's one of a kind.

The long awaited return of angry screaming todd for a brief second there!

Literally the first album I remember owning, circa 1989 or 1990, I was like 3 years old and had this plastic micky mouse cassette player. Can't remember at all who gave me the tape, but I know it was mine.

The Cosby censor? A fucking plus, Todd.

Its funny, I’ve been rewatching your old OHW videos and I could have sworn DWBH was already out. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t find it. And now it’s here!

Been waiting for this one!