"Happy Girl" is a song written by

Beth Nielsen Chapman Beth Nielsen Chapman (born September 14, 1958) is an American singer and songwriter who has written hits for Country music, country and pop music performers. She was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016. Nielsen Chapman ...

and Annie Roboff, and recorded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer

Martina McBride Martina Mariea McBride (née Schiff, born July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer-songwriter and record producer. She is known for her soprano singing range and her country pop material. McBride was born in Sharon, Kansas, and relocat ...

. It was released in April 1998 as the third single from McBride’s album ''

Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

''. It reached a peak of #2 on the U.S. country chart and #4 on the Canadian country chart.

Content

"Happy Girl" is a song in which the female narrator asserts her happiness with life. The song includes

penny whistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. ...

and

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

. McBride performed the song at the 32nd annual

Country Music Association The Country Music Association (CMA) was founded in 1958 in Nashville, Tennessee. It originally consisted of 233 members and was the first trade organization formed to promote a music genre. The objectives of the organization are to guide and enha ...

(CMA) awards. She later sang the song at the

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade in New York City presented by the U.S.-based department store chain Macy's. The Parade first took place in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States with ...

on November 26, 1998.

Chart performance

"Happy Girl" debuted at #70 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

) chart dated for April 25, 1998. It spent 22 weeks on the chart, peaking at #2 on the chart dated for August 8, 1998 and holding that position for two weeks.

Year-end charts

References

{{authority control 1998 singles 1997 songs Martina McBride songs Song recordings produced by Paul Worley Songs written by Beth Nielsen Chapman RCA Records singles Songs written by Annie Roboff