Depressing Cheerfulness

I generally like Tim Burton's work just fine; even when it's not great it's still interesting. Even so, I haven't seen Corpse Bride yet. But since I also very much like Danny Elfman, I find myself listening to the soundtrack. Highly reminiscent of that other stop-motion animated film, the music is funky and enjoyable. I remember James Berardinelli criticizing the music of Nightmare for failing to have you humming as you left the theater, and this music has that same character, whether or not you think that's a fault. (I think not.) But the lyrics are full of interesting (IMO) ideas about what it might be like to be a dead person competing with a living person for another's affections, if such a situation were possible. There's even a fun Peter Lorre imitation, completely obvious from the moment his voice enters the track "Tears to Shed".

"Remains of the Day" is perhaps analogous (in lounge-style and light-hearted grotesquerie) to Nightmare's "Oogie Boogie's Song". The oft-repeated mantra in "Remains" is the following thought:

Die! Die! We all pass away,
but don't wear a frown
'cuz it's really OK.

You might try to hide,
and you might try to pray,
but we all end up
the remains of the day.

I think Burton's creative and I appreciate his genius, and even his fascination with darkness and twistedness; he's rather like a mildly pessimistic Dr. Seuss. But the main idea of the chorus of "Remains of the Day" is surprisingly heavy, and disturbingly nihilistic. I'm not convinced (or claiming) that Burton intends the words to be taken as discounting religious belief, though they do certainly imply that prayer is ineffective as a means of avoiding death -- that assertion can be taken a number of ways.

One way to take it is to realize that people who recognize impending death often pray in desperation (around the same time they might be hiding the truth from themselves), and that sort of thing certainly is ineffective. That's a fair interpretation, and probably (I suspect) the primarily intended one.