If It Makes You Happy

This song describes a person who seems depressed or upset no matter what happens. According to Crow, the inspiration for the song was her feelings after the massive success of her first album, Tuesday Night Music Club, as her record label and the media put pressure on her to follow it up. That debut album she wrote and recorded with a group of guys who would get together on Tuesday nights to make music. When it became a surprise hit, some of them disparaged Crow in the media, claiming they deserved more credit and/or royalties than they got. "It was a message to everybody that had been a part of the first record," she told People in 2023. "While everybody's making a ton of money off this record, I'm the one that's having to defend myself. That was basically the impetus for the song."

The song raises some interesting questions about the nature of happiness, which can be fleeting and subjective. Asked by Rolling Stone in 2017, "If it makes you happy, can it be that bad?" Crow responded: "As great a hook as that might be, that is a conundrum. My struggle in life is accepting the idea of choosing to be happy. Happiness is not something where you wake up that way. You decide you're gonna be happy. And it took me a long time to figure that out. I definitely consciously do it with my children, because they define themselves by your mood and how it relates to them. As a parent and as a person, life can be happy, but you have to decide that that's the life you're gonna lead."

Crow wrote this song with Jeff Trott, who has worked on many of her songs, including "Everyday Is a Winding Road" and "Soak Up The Sun." Trott came up with the line, "If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?" "I look at songwriters like they're people who really love puzzles," Trott explained to Songfacts. "When you don't really have the real heart of the theme developed yet, and then all of a sudden, you stumble across it, I always say something like, 'All right we've cracked the code.'"