“Put On a Happy Face” is a popular show tune with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adams. It was written for the Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie, with a book by Michael Stewart, which ran on Broadway from 1960 to 1961, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and opened in London in 1961. Dick Van Dyke introduced the song in the 1960 stage production, and his performance appears on the original Broadway cast album, also released in 1960.
In the show, the song is sung at a New York train station, where Albert Peterson advises a girl who fears she will be too old for the rock star Conrad Birdie, once he leaves the Army, to stay optimistic. The musical was later adapted as a 1963 film and a 1995 television production.
