Features : Jimmy Mallia takes a sad song and makes it happy with “They Say I Only Write Sad Songs”

Jimmy Mallia’s latest song, “They Say I Only Write Sad Songs,” is a sad song in a classic country way. For one thing, it has steel guitar crying in the melody.

And the first line repeats the title: “They say I only write sad songs,” and the second line says, “only songs about my heartbreak.” The rest of the first verse says he can’t find the fun in life or let the sad parts go, blames it on a wife, and so on.

Sad sad sad. But.

Jimmy’s guitar dances a celebration in the beat, a kind of classic country line-dance beat, like the melody is a classic country melody, but the beat is happy, and Jimmy’s burr-edged baritone voice doesn’t sound at all sad but sounds, as in all his songs, like he’s having fun.

Then there’s the chorus:

You may be right
Fuh-fuh forget you
I’m lovin’ life — life my life
And I have it all
Fuh-fuh forget you
Always right without a wife

“I wrote this song 15-plus years ago, sometime after either a divorce or a breakup,” he said. “It’s obviously a fun, loud, raucous kind of song, but the kind of deeper meaning is that freedom that I think everybody feels if you’ve ever broken up a relationship that you should have gotten out of, you can relate to the freedom of ‘I can do what I want.’ It’s just that's just that simple.”

And the contrasting elements, the serious ones revealed in the lines that point back to, and make fun of himself, are the bad decisions he makes, like being loud and obnoxious and getting drunk.

He wrote this song about the time, in his mid-forties, when he picked up his guitar again for the first time since high school. He started playing and writing songs mainly for himself and his three daughters. He used to sing them to sleep.

And he wrote a string of sad songs. Really sad songs.

“I had written a bunch of sad songs in a row, and I thought, ‘I gotta at least write a fun one.’”

He did not start putting his music out until 2023, when he dropped “Hey Hey,” which, incidentally, was a song about recovering from alcoholism. That also was a fun song, despite the subject matter and making some serious points along the way. It was a fun listen and he made fun of himself in that one, too. All the songs he has put out so far are fun listens and most of them poke fun back at himself.

But, 15 years ago, the sad songs were — sad. There was no audience then, since he wasn’t putting out any music at the time, so, there was no “they” to tell him he only wrote sad songs, but the sad songs he was writing were bumming out the guy he was writing songs with.

“It was getting a little bit too dark, and it got to be time for a fun song. I thought, ‘I could do that.’”

The steel guitar wasn’t in it originally. When he knew that he wanted to get it ready for release, he thought, “I really want to have a steel guitar in this. I hear it.”

It is the steel guitar’s first appearance in his music.

“There’s a couple releases I think were made for a steel guitar, and I didn’t do it, so it kind of adds regret there, but, just so you know, there will be more steel guitar in the future, for sure.”

He said the steel guitar “really gave it depth, that sort of melancholy feel to a totally upbeat song.”

“I just love the way it fades out at the end.”

His songs are all stories from his life, which was not as fun as the music that tells the stories. In his bio he cites two divorces, 40-plus years as an alcoholic and an attempted suicide, but now he is more than four years sober and two years into a budding music career.

“They Say I Only Sing Sad Songs” is the seventh song he has released. He released “Hey Hey” just to see what would happen, and a lot has.

People are listening. Spotify reported that he had 1.3 million streams last year, “which is pretty good.” He’s averaging 20,000 streams per week, thousands of new listeners. Soon, he will have a website.

He wants to perform live and is putting together a band. “I have the band almost put together. I know who I want to play with. So, that’s another big step coming up.”

What he wants for “They Say I Only Write Sad Songs” is that people “can relate to it in a good way, have fun with it and feel some joy.” He wants that for all his songs.

“I’m thrilled that people are actually listening to my music. It’s been a pleasant surprise,” he said. “I’ll keep releasing them as long as they keep playing them.”

So, keep playing. Connect to Jimmy Mallia on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

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