Theo Tams, Happy On The Outside | Beaming with Pride 🏳️‍🌈

Reading Time: 3 min read

In the first edition of Beaming with Pride (2025), we highlight Theo Tams’ song “Happy On The Outside.”

Prepare to beam with P-R-I-D-E ️‍! Beaming with Pride celebrates, embraces, and spotlights songs by LGBTQ musicians or allies. Here, we provide background and insight into musician(s) and analyze + go gaga over the decadent bops served up. When the music dictates deeper, more transcendent discussion, we ensure the point is fully articulated. All styles of music are welcome while the songs can be classics or brand-spanking new. So, without further ado, in the 1^st edition of Beaming with Pride (2025), we highlight “Happy On The Outside” performed by Theo Tams.

“I gotta be careful.” Why, Theo Tams? “‘Cause if I write another sad song, they’ll call me melodramatic / And so I fake a smile, yeah, I’ll fake it for a while.” Shame, shame, shame. The handsome and talented Canadian feels forced to put on a façade. When you don’t feel happy, putting on a façade can be incredibly difficult. But, in this case of “Happy On The Outside”, Tams appears that way despite what he’s masking on the inside. Tams produced the enjoyable, late December 2024 single alongside Marty Martino and Brian Rivlin.

“Happy On The Outside” commences with a lovely, rhythmic instrumental introduction. It gets the song off on the right foot. Tams brings a strong vocal to the table, bringing the emotional and honest songwriting to life – despite that façade, of course! Even though “No one will see me walk a wire or the dumpster fire that my life is,” he expresses how he copes with holding stuff in on the tuneful chorus:

“Happy on the outside

When inside I just really wanna die

…So pass the grass

Smoke some weed

Raise your glass

And cheers to me

Cause I’m good at being

Happy on the outside

When inside I just really wanna die.”

Word. Some fun, playful vocal moments and effects make “Happy On The Outside” an even happier experience! I love how the background vocals slide on “yeah.” The “hold up(s)” appearing in the final verse, are sick! In the second chorus, the addition of spoken word response vocals brings a welcome contrast that is retained for the rest of the song. The bridge also brings contrast but remains in the spirit of the song (“I’ve already said too much but / Somehow not enough / So I’ll just keep on being…”). “Happy On The Outside” is a bop. Yeah, Theo Tams has to sacrifice being ‘true to self,’ but his fakeness is our listening pleasure. Still, Theo, you should do what Ariana Grande sang years ago, “fuck a fake smile”.