The smile on my face is because...

....I’m enjoying a song sent to me by Kevin Denton of the band The Crooners. He wrote it while struggling with grief over a friend and bandmate's death, and after reading my article about happiness on the Arts and Letters website (but originally in Philosophy Now). You can hear so many things in it …. I'll let the connections speak for themselves. The band has a really great sound too which you'll discover if you listen here.

Happiness

Yesterday, you should have seen,
offer that was made for me to get in this machine.
A little man he promised me that I would have the chance to be
as happy as can be, oh c'est la vie.

I looked at him with trepidation,
's science and illumination checked out ok.
All he'd do is say the word and I'd be up, free as a bird
in my own mind, yeah some of the time.

Meditation and medication,
this transcendental education has come to pass.
There's come to be a disconnect where love and mem'ry intersect.
You've vanished like two ships in the night.

Oh Happiness isn't all I guess it's cracked up to be,
Life is Bittersweet.
And oh, I've come to find its hard all the time.

Here I am in hot pursuit, though I know the point is moot,
There's nothing can be done.
Up and down it comes and goes, oh happiness yeah no one knows
how to pin you down, or to keep you around.

This old man that I heard mumble,
"just try to steer and try not to stumble" got me thinkin' hard.
God's not here and I don't miss em, where was he when you went missing?
I don't believe he's looking out for me.

Oh Happiness isn't all I guess it's cracked up to be,
Life is Bittersweet.
And oh, I've come to find its hard all the time.

I'm still smiling.