I don't think it's hard.. just meaningless, and that's why motivation sometimes might fail grin

Well, in country they want songs with a positive outlook. The market for silly songs seems quite small, as artists are concerned about their image. A song like "I don't care if the sun don't shine" might not ring too good these day (especially after our ridiculous Copenhagen environmental summit whistle ) So silly does not go too well, but female empowerment or rowdy stuff does.. I think John Rich's "Hicktown" is a good example of a song where 'rowdy' and 'happy' complements each other well.. a little edge in the music along with fun lyrics..

Also happy songs tend to be meaningless if the subject matter is not selected carefully, and there still must be some conflict ground in the set up, to avoid cliché.

It's the same everywhere in worklife these days, songwriting no different, 'positive' is part of the job description. I agree it adds to the load of crap you have to take as part of a job, yet it poses some interesting challenges of turning subjects upside down.

The magic formula is to angle something negative to be positive, like an emotion "I don't care". They you might say "So what, shoot me", and you use "Shoot me" as a positive figure of speech in a song instead of the literal negative connotation. Like..

I don't care if you're a snake
Im going to ask for your hand
I wanna love ya, not be your friend
And if you don't like to go there
Don't make the ammends
Just SHOOT ME

laugh