What’s a song that always puts you in a good mood?
I’m a little surprised, but the first song that comes to mind is Earth, Wind & Fire’s Boogie Wonderland. It is not really my kind of music. At least, it is not the kind of song that I would play by choice, but when I hear it always puts me in a good mood. Songs are not always about taste. Sometimes they are about association.
For me, Boogie Wonderland takes me straight back to the French film The Intouchables. It is a wonderful, unlikely film about the friendship between Philippe, a wealthy aristocrat who is paralysed, and Driss, the exuberant young man who becomes his carer. The film should not work as well as it does. The pairing is too odd. The contrasts are too obvious. Yet somehow that is exactly why it works.
The same is true of the music. Earth, Wind & Fire in a French comedy. Funk and disco alongside the quiet piano compositions of Ludovico Einaudi. Formal rooms interrupted by movement. Stiffness unsettled by joy. People who might otherwise remain carefully composed find themselves smiling, dancing, loosening up.
I don’t think Boogie Wonderland puts me in a good mood simply because it is upbeat. It lifts me because it reminds me of that odd combination of humour, friendship, and release. It reminds me that joy often comes from pairings no one would have planned.
And perhaps that is why the song stays with me. It is not just a good-mood song. It is a reminder that sometimes the unlikely thing works. Sometimes the wrong song is exactly the right one. Sometimes joy takes you by surprise.
The Afterword 
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