Why Do We Have The Birthday Song?
The Birthday Song is responsible for creating awkwardness inside the one person meant to be celebrating. I’m not sure anyone over the age of 7 has ever enjoyed this song, whether being sang to, or a part of the crowd doing the singing.
It began in Louisville, Kentucky, where sisters Patty Smith Hill and Mildred J. Hill introduced the melody “Good Morning to All” in their 1893 songbook. Patty taught kindergarten and Mildred composed.
In the years that followed, the classroom tune spread beyond Louisville as teachers and partygoers began substituting the words “Happy birthday to you,” transforming a morning greeting into a birthday song that finally appeared in print in 1912.
Now it is the key moment of every birthday celebration that you know you cannot hide from. It is a given that this cringey tune will be sang off-key by a crowd of people at some point in the evening.
You start sweating. You don’t to sing it. You don’t want to have people sing it to you. No one knows what key to sing it in. The birthday girl wants to disappear. Everyone is staring at her and she has no idea what to do. Do I smile? Do I make concentrated eye contact? Do I look at the cake? How long is this travesty going to take?
Can you imagine. For all of human history we just say “Happy Birthday”. Maybe your mom celebrated it for you. It is really a holiday for her, right?! She pushed you out the canal! All you did was start breathing! 🤣
No. You selfish sonovabitch. You want this to be about you. We are going to celebrate the day you made it around the sun one more time. Ok cool. Whatever. Let’s just play some marbles in the courtyard or feed the horses or whatever people did.
Then these chololitos write A SONG in 1893 that you embarrass the birthday person with. Maybe this was intentional? Maybe they thought celebrating your name day was dumb and they wanted to shame you. 😂
Can you imagine being at someone’s house or backyard and then all of a sudden they are like “Let’s sing a song while Timmy blows the candles out?”. I’d be like uhhhhhhh I’m getting another beer. Later. It must’ve been so insanely awkward.
But then it catches on. Everybody starts doing it. You jump on the bandwagon. Someone must like it, right? No. No one likes it. It needs to be banished. I don’t even celebrate my birthday just cuz I don’t want to have to punish people and make them sing this song.
Ok. I’m only joking. I’m really not being negative. Celebrate how you want to. It’s your birthday. You want all this attention for simply existing. I’m gonna write your mom an email and tell her how awesome she is for surviving the most intense pain of her life so you can have strangers sing to you on your 43rd birthday. I’m getting another beer. 🍺🤣😉
