About This Song
About "Glad to Be Unhappy" by Helen Merrill
Merrill finds a wry, bittersweet irony in this standard, her tone a velvet shrug against a backdrop of sparse, nocturnal piano. The song’s title is a feint—gladness here is a performance, a mask worn over a cracked heart. It’s the sound of smiling through a sigh, wrapped in sophisticated, late-night jazz.