Happiness Is the Road is Marillion's 15th studio album, released in 2008 as two separate album-length volumes respectively titled Essence and The Hard Shoulder.

The album sees Marillion experimenting with a host of new instruments, including dulcimers, glockenspiels, a harmonium, French horns and even sleigh bells, a harp and zither.

[3] The album's artwork was created by the Spanish artist Antonio Seijas in co-operation with Marillion's long-time designer Carl Glover.

In most of the world, initially the physical formats were only available via mail-order from the band's website; only in the US and Poland has the album been available in retail shops from the start.

However, when only about a third of the expected sales were achieved via mail-order, Marillion decided to release a worldwide retail version distributed by EMI.

"Real Tears for Sale" first appeared in the band's live set in late 2007, almost a year before the album release.

[4] It is one of seven songs that had been written earlier and were already recorded during the Somewhere Else sessions; the others are "A State of Mind", "Trap the Spark", "Older Than Me", "Throw Me Out", "Half the World" and "Especially True".

The first single ("Whatever Is Wrong With You") was released as a download, and fans were invited to enter a competition to make their own video to the track.

When any of these tracks is first played, a pop-up box appears asking listeners to give the band their email address in return.

All music written by Marillion, lyrics by Steve Hogarth Track 12 is listed as Half-Empty Jam on the download version, but was changed just prior to the CD release of the album.