"Happy Ending" | ||||
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Single by Mika | ||||
from the album Life in Cartoon Motion | ||||
Released | 15 October 2007 (UK) 11 January 2008 (Europe) |
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Format | Digital download, CD, 12" vinyl, 7" vinyl | |||
Recorded | 2007 | |||
Genre | Pop, orchestral rock | |||
Length | 3:32 (LA edit) 4:36 (album version) |
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Label | Island | |||
Writer(s) | Mika (singer) | |||
Producer(s) | Greg Wells | |||
Mika singles chronology | ||||
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"Happy Ending" is the third single release from British singer Mika. Taken from his debut album Life in Cartoon Motion, producer Greg Wells remixed and rearranged the single, released online on 8 October 2007, and in shops on CD and 7" vinyl on 15 October 2007.
The single charted as Mika's fourth straight UK Top 10 single out of his first four, continuing his UK success so far, peaking at #7 in the UK Singles Chart. It was the fifth most added song to Australian radio in late October 2007 and was released there officially on 12 November 2007, as the 3rd single despite digital track sales placing the song in the ARIA singles chart before the official release.
On Life in Cartoon Motion, fifty seconds after the song ends, a hidden track, "Over My Shoulder" starts. It is a solemn song about being left alone, cold and drunk. This also appeared on the CD single of "Grace Kelly".
Mika described the story behind the song:
"It's about a few things. In a way, it's a kind of sad break-up song like 'My Interpretation.' But, at the same time, it's about a lot of other things. I'll never forget when I was actually recording this song in Los Angeles, I would take this drive from where I was staying to the studio, which wasn't in the city and the amount of homeless people I saw on the way was absolutely shocking. Those horrible images of homelessness that I would see every morning really connected with that song. So it just comes to show you that a bright song in a certain mindset had a meaning that really evolves and changes as time goes by. I think that it is very important that other listeners find their own meaning to songs. So many people are very openly suggestive to the point of being abstract. It's the most powerful thing when that becomes the song."
The woman singing with Mika in “Happy Ending” on the album is Ida Falk Winland, an opera singer and former classmate of Mika from the Royal College of Music.
The song received critical acclaim. Christian John Wikane from PopMatters commented about his voice on the track, writing that "Like a choirboy singing by candlelight, Mika awakes goose bumps with the chilling purity of his voice." Graham Griffith from About.com was succinct, writing that the song is "gorgeous", while Lizzie Ennever from BBC Music described it as a "lovely, piano-led".