One of the ways I avoided doing schoolwork back in high school and university was coming up with lists of songs that shared the same hilarious theme. I tried a few with various degrees of success, the most successful of which was, as the title of this post demonstrates, cheery songs about unintended pregnancies. Now, while I don't hold either the cheeriness or the unintendedness to too strict a standard, in general I look for songs with a fair amount of dissonance between form (cheeriness) and content (unintended pregnancy). I don't necessarily have a lot to say about some of these songs, the dissonance is usually enough, but if I have any additional commentary I will undoubtedly share it.
The first one on my list (there's no particular order to it) is Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something."
Formally I know the song is not exactly cheery, its more supremely groovin' than anything, but I for one think that's good enough, after all, it isn't slow, meandering and depressive. In terms of the lyrical content of the song, I'm not going to hazard a guess at what all of it is about and how much of it fits together, but the following lyrics are pretty clear about what you shouldn't be starting if you aren't ready for it (hint: its a baby)
If You Cant Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
Then Don't Have A Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
And Don't Think Maybe (Yeah, Yeah)
If You Can't Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
You'll Be Always Tryin'
To Stop That Child From Cryin'
Hustlin', Stealin', Lyin'
Now Baby's Slowly Dyin'
I don't think there's much more I can say about this; it seems like pretty good advice.
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