Stop Singing “Happy Birthday to You”
There are three ways to have a good birthday:
- Don’t invite people you don’t like.
- Eat your favorite dessert, cake or not.
- Don’t sing “Happy Birthday to You.”
Agony “Happy Birthday to You”
Singing Happy Birthday feels bad . The notes seem awkward, the tempo seems awkward, the whole situation seems awkward. The song is twenty seconds squeezing veins, seconds that stretch like Zeno’s paradox, and you can feel every moment as if you were hit by a bullet:
- -0: 05. Someone brings out the cake. The crowd gets closer and looks at each other excitedly, looking at the cake to make sure it feeds the entire group. Everyone looks at the person with the cake to start the song, even if it’s the person who is already doing their job .
- -0: 02. One person starts singing, and everyone freezes, trying to find the note and the tempo at the same time, because although this is the most famous song on the planet, it is impossible to start in sync, unlike, say, “One Week” from Barenakeda.
- 0:00. Now everyone has joined. From here, everyone else will slow down to match the last schmuck that came.
- 0:01. Everyone ends up with the word “happy”, but not right away because they are still syncing.
- 0:03. Around now, the birthday man begins to creep into his head. Where should she look? Is she smiling enough? Why isn’t this song finished yet? If you plan to comment that no one panics like that when people sing “Happy Birthday to You” to them, then answer: why else do some birthday people start singing along?
- 0:05. The first line is finally over. The birthday boy made short, almost apologetic, eye contact with each guest.
- 0:06. If you’ve managed to sing faster than that, someone now decides to add a little flair by shouting “Hey!”
- 0: 07-0: 11. General fear.
- 0:12. Another fight for the pace when we move up to third place. The birthday boy chooses where to watch when his name is chanted, and each option is daunting.
- 0:14. BIIIIIRTH-NOBODY-NOBODY-CAN’T HIT IN-NOTE
- 0:15. Everyone slows down for a thrilling moment – hey you, we’re singing that name of yours! Your name is in the song!
- 0:17. The crowd hits the title hard as it should be the culmination of the song, but it’s an oddly low note. Or at least they should hit hard. God help you if your name is quieter than the rest of the song.
- 0:18. Everyone pauses, why would you pause, we’re so close to ending this to congratulate ourselves on singing that name.
- 0:18 – ?: ??. General fear.
Why is it objectively bad
Why does this song seem to be transported into the dimension of hell, where thousands of lives are tortured and then sent back the second you left? I asked composer and musician Jason Oberholzer to name the reason. It turns out there are SEVERAL REASONS.
The first few notes are awkward, says Oberholzer: “The dark beat of the first measure is really onerous and makes people not understand which key we should be in or where the impulse is, because the first two notes are the notes that come on the third note (downbeat). which is the sixth part of the chord on which it starts. “
And it doesn’t get better. “The proportions of the melody are everywhere. The climax just rushes (in the form of an octave) into the third phrase. “
The melody does not fit the text, each time underlining different parts of the same line. “Jumps up from unimportant words:” Happy Birthday to YOU. ” ‘happy birthday.’ We are on an important mechanical bull and no one knows how to phrase the lines. “
Birthday is the worst, Oberholzer says, because it even violates the pattern set by TO, which implies the emphasis on DEAR. But that won’t fix it. “A sane person would find a way to do this:”
Happy Birthday YOU, Happy Birthday YOU, Happy Birthday, dear NAME
Then the ending does not give a strong solution. “We’ve come to the simplest and most common conclusion, and it’s just … done.”
The tune worked a little better with the original lyrics: “Good morning to you, good morning to you, good morning, dear children, good morning to you.” Oberholzer notes that unlike “Happy BIRTHDAY”, “GOOD MORNING” follows the usual pattern of speech. “Correctly worded, this is a playful piece of writing, very suitable for children and the morning.”
But the birthday version is phrased so awkwardly: “People lean in the wrong parts and we get a monster. We ruined a perfectly good, graceful morning song by trying to turn it into a screaming party song. “
What to do instead
Look, I would prefer that we just didn’t sing anything, because the tune is bad or not, I hate to sit without a sound while people sing to me. But most of you degenerates probably love the experience, so pick whichever song you want. Our sister site Splinter has a solid list of alternative songs .
In my Christian school we sang a song thatwould say the name of Jesus but not the birthday boy , which seems fair. I mean, sing theweird heavy metal birthday song from Aqua Teen Hunger Force if you want to, at least it’s purposely bad.“Birthday” is the worst Beatles song, but at least it’s a Beatles song .
Or just sing along a non-birthday song. Just a song that you like. Find a karaoke track on YouTube and go for it. Compared to Happy Birthday To You, even Bohemian Rhapsody is fast.
And hey, if you want to sing Happy Birthday to You because it’s a tradition, great. But don’t pretend you really like it.