Switched on Pop - "Happy Birthday" is the Worst (with Anne-Marie)

Episode Date: March 24, 2020

With Nate’s birthday around the corner, it’s time to admit that our go-to birthday song is actually the worst to sing to someone. There are reasons both musicological and cultural why this wooden celebratory number needs to go, ranging from funereal rhythms to Wagnerian opera to the Wizard of Oz. Tune in to uncover the horror of “Happy Birthday” and consider some of the alternatives on offer, including a recent Anne-Marie hit that takes birthday wishes and turns them around 180º. Songs Discussed Frédéric Chopin - Piano Sonata No 2 in B-Flat Minor, III John Williams - The Imperial March Judy Garland - Over the Rainbow Richard Wagner - Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde The Beatles - Birthday Anne-Marie - Birthday Fetty Wap ft. Monty - Birthday Stevie Wonder - Happy Birthday Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Charlie, lately there has been a pop song that is everywhere. I cannot get it out of my head and it is driving me crazy. What's that? Okay, rather than tell you, let's sing it together. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear

Nate Thank you very much Happy birthday to you And many more That was horrible Yeah I hate this song

So much It is your birthday My birthday is in two days And yes I'm in Ari So I'm very stubborn And once I get something in my head I can't get it out We're going to dedicate this episode

To discussing why the song is so horrible and why it needs to go away forever. And this is a moment where happy birthday is everywhere, right? The CDC is literally telling us to sing it while we wash our hands so that we do it for at least 20 seconds.

I think it's 20 seconds. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear, Mulchick. Thank you very much, and because this song was finally entered into the public domain five years ago after a lengthy

copyright battle, we are now exposed to it all the time. There was a blissful period where no one wanted to pay the copyright on this song, so you never heard it on TV or movies. And now, for better or worse, that is no longer the case. So it's really important that we collectively decide never to sing this song again. And I'm not alone. Let me be clear.

I'm not alone in this. I want to play you a clip from Trevor Noah, comedian, host of The Daily Show. This is a clip that was filmed in between the taping when he's just kind of going back and forth with the audience. Think about it this way. If you told someone from another culture, like, let's say they'd never experienced happy birthday, you could think it was like a death song.

Like a song about like your one year closer to death. Imagine if you didn't speak English at all and you'd never heard the song in your life, right? You wouldn't know what they're saying. Just think of the tone and the pitch of the song. So, like, everyone gathers around. someone and they like sit down and then they turn off the lights and then someone comes out with a candle that candles on a cake and it's just like

ah-d-d-d-go-d-do-oo-oh-oh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h. Okay so with Trevor Noah's criticism in mind I want to go through all the reasons why this song is absolute trash and then consider some alternatives that we might sing for the future because I I like, I want to, I'm not like, I'm not at a birthday. I'm not Scrooge here. I love birthdays. I love celebrating.

I love singing together. But not this song. Ready? Are you one? Reason one why this song needs to die is exactly what Trevor Noah was just talking about. This song is not fun. It is not happy. It is lugubrious.

That's the perfect word for it. Thank you. I was going to go with Lacromos, but. We'll stick with lugubrius. I think Trevor Noah is onto something. There's something kind of dirge-like about the music of this song. You strip away the words. Something funereal.

There's definitely some Scottish guys marching along in a field with a bagpipe and someone's died. Yeah, okay. And you just dropped the M word here, the march. And I am sensing the same thing. And I think it all really starts with the opening rhythm of this song. Happy birthday. It's got... It's this dotted rhythm.

Yeah, it's like... Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da. Happy birthday! Which is a hard rhythm for a young person to sing. So it's very strange that we would expect, like, a two-year-old to sing that. Totally. It's not in a common rhythm.

And you know where we find this rhythm? A march. Any march in particular? The March of the Penguins? Oh, you... You sweet, sweet child. What about, like, the Imperial March? You're getting warmer.

The composition that John Williams based the Imperial March from Star Wars on... Oh, it comes from Holst. From Chopin. That's happy birthday, right? Dun, done, done, done, right. Happy birthday to you. Happy birth. I mean, that is really dark.

I mean, yeah, you just picture people in black processing through the rain. it's a sad rhythm. Wow, so from happy birthday to Star Wars Imperial March and it's actually a Chopin's a funeral. Well, I mean, I'm stretching but certainly I think that rhythm Happy Birth, like that

is like you said, a March rhythm and I think it's not easy to make the jump to a funeral march because you often sing this song in a very slow tempo. Maybe I would even say plotting is a descriptor. And you know, it's worth noting this

wasn't the way the song was always intended. When it was written by the Mill Sisters back in the 1890s for the group of students that they were teaching, it was called Good Morning to All. If you change that first word to a single syllable, you get, I think, a much nicer kind of rhythmic profile, something like, Good morning to all. Good morning to all. Good morning, dear children. Good morning to all.

Ah, so this is an issue of declamation. Yes. You just dropped a big old D-bomb there. Talk to me of declamation. You introduced declamation to me when we talked about Sean Mendez. It's all about how we set the words and rhythm together. And certain words have a natural rhythm

and the word, happy birthday. It's just not easy to sing, but Good Morning to All is just has a more natural. It pairs to more common rhythm. You know, I'll even introduce one more wrinkle here because in a 1922 publication of this song, they don't suggest happy birthday with that dotted march rhythm. They just suggest happy birthday. So it's just a straight, let me play. I think that's kind of hard to hear.

So there's happy birthday to you. Okay, that's the normal way, the uneven staccata rhythm. Then there's also, Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Very subtle. The difference between da-da-da-da and da-da-da-da. But I vastly prefer that suggested second version.

It also makes you realize that this song is a terrible song to sing collectively because it begins not on the downbeat. Like, you have to anticipate the rhythm. It's got a pickup, yeah. It's got a pickup. Charlie, you have just brought us to... Are you two? The second reason why this song is terrible and needs to be banished immediately.

This song is really hard to sing together. Yeah. For a song that is one of the only songs we sing collectively as a society, along with, like, the Star-Spangled Banner, take me out to the ball game. And... And of course, Lady Gaga's poker face. Right, right, of course. Just these really cultural touchstones.

For a song that is one of the few songs we sing together, it is really hard to sing together. And the first thing is what you pointed out, that it starts on an upbeat. So it's how everyone, whenever you start the song, everyone's always like, when's... It's a giant gasp, it's a collective gas,

where is it start, how's it going to happen? And then one person leads it, usually innate, because he's bold. And then the way the song is constructed, there's an awkward pause after every phrase. Happy birthday to you. Gaping pause, silence. Who's going to start the next verse?

That's where the drum solo goes. Happy birthday to you. Another awkward pause. This is horrible. Everyone's thinking, when will this end? Get me out of here. And then finally, the worst moment in the whole song, or maybe the second worst, we'll see.

This octave leap, an incredibly difficult interval to sing. Happy birthday. Day. That is so cruel. Right. To make people sing an octave. That's a really daunting interval. Yeah. And that's the part of the song when it's usually the most excruciating. Happy bird. Everyone's like, oh, God, what's happening? We wrote about in our book, the songwriter, great songwriter Irving Berlin, had this sort of treatise for how to write a pop song. And you're supposed to constrain your vocal to an octave and not make giant leaps because they're difficult to sing.

They should move in stepwise motion. Unless you are a diva and when you want to go out of this world, I think the only song that deserves its octave leap, narratively, is somewhere over the rainbow. Somewhere over the rainbow way up high. Oh, I like that because you're saying it's literally you can like feel the distance of like, you can imagine jumping over a rainbow. Yes.

Because of how massive that octave leap. is somewhere that's exactly you got to arch it yeah you got to bend all the way there I was I went diving for octaves in pop music yeah you know because as you might imagine they're pretty rare and usually

only when you know like you said a diva is singing them right though interestingly you know what song I realize has a lot of octave leaps in it what's that Ed Sheeran's perfect really yeah Yeah, but that's a deep, that's a diva vocal. But it's just, it's shrouded in the hushed whispers of Ed Sheeran. Totally, totally.

I just wanted, you know, we shower a lot of hate on Ed Sheeran on the show. I wanted to give him his props. I appreciate that. That's a tough thing to sing. I like Ed Shearine. Okay, okay. Table that for another day. But what we don't like?

Our octaves. in the middle of a freaking birthday song. Yes. What, that's like dastardly. Yeah. It's really hard to sing. Okay. So this song, we agree, is hard to sing.

That brings us to... Are you three? Okay, we haven't even gotten to probably the most uncomfortable moment whenever you're singing, happy birthday. What's the name of the person? Yes, exactly. Really? Ding, ding, ding.

You're like, I mean, let's just recap what's happened so far. Yeah. You started on an upbeat. No one started together. really uncomfortable. You have these long gaps. No one knows where to begin the next phrase. You all had to jump up an octave and it sounded like a bunch of donkeys brain. And then you kind of get to the climax of the song and everyone's like, wait, how are we going to sing this person's name? So there's like kind of a write-in, you know, enter your name here moment. Right. Which on one

hand is like lovely. You know, it's kind of a customizable song. Right. But also this has so many pitfalls. Okay. Like, first of all, take, you know, your name. Are we going to call you Charlie? Are we going to call you Charles? We haven't decided that in advance. Chuck, the formal Chaz. Chuck, Charles, Narls. You know, there's a lot of options here.

Right. Now, the best one is probably Charlie because that fits with the two-syllable pitch count of the song. Da-da-da-da, one, two. Charlie. Yeah, but what if you had to sing Charles? Well, that's an impossible word.

That's the worst. Then you have this really awkward kind of like malisma, Charles. It's like, sounds horrible. Nate. It's like, no, no, don't do that. Everyone just collectively neighed together. And then what if you have, you know, a multi-syllabic name? Right, yeah.

You know, Ezekiel. And all of a sudden, happy birthday, dear Ezekiel. I mean, everyone's going to like fudge it in some slightly different way. Right. We don't want some collective. free jazz improv moment in the middle of our birthday song. And yet that's what we have to contend with every time we sing this song. Maybe that's why people feel so embarrassed when people are singing happy birthday to

them. It's not just the collective recognition, which can make some people uncomfortable, stage fright, whatever. It's just deeply embarrassing for everyone involved. Yes, it's embarrassing for the singers. It's embarrassing for the birthday person. Yeah. It's embarrassing for any, you know, haphist.

Bystanders. Oh, my gosh. A restaurant? know what the name is. Okay. This brings us to... Are you four? The fourth reason the song sucks.

This is a little more idiosyncratic and a little more personal for me. Okay. But let's talk about that same moment with the name. There's something happening musically there that I don't like.

Okay. Now, you may feel differently. Sure. So, you know, to each their own. Sure. But let's break down what's happening musically at this moment.

Ooh. Wait, that is happy birthday. That is happy birthday. I'm just isolating that one moment. How would you even describe that? Is that like a, is there a flat six on top? What is that? It is an apagiaatura. Apagiotura. I definitely learned that about 15 years ago and I can't remember what it means. Let's refresh your memory. Apagiatura from the Italian for leaning. This describes any moment when you have a pitch that does not belong. to a chord resolving to a pitch that does belong to a chord.

Right. It's a suspension. It's a suspension but in a very particular way in which you accent the chromatic note. So that's the note, chroma, the colorful note that doesn't belong to the chord. So in this case we have a chord. If we're playing this song in C, we have a chord here that's an F major chord. That isn't happy. And you know what note doesn't belong in that F major chord? I'm gonna guess it's a B. It's this B natural. Exactly. If I just play that all at the same time, it's got a nice kind of crunchy dissonance to it. Yeah.

And then there's this kind of emotional release we get when we hear that dissonance, that chromaticism resolve to a member of the chord. And now we're in this happy chromatic land. So we're going from dissonance to consonants, chromaticism to diatonicism. And if we put it in the context of the song, it becomes this kind of climactic moment. I also love that we go back to our classical theory stuff. Please, always. That interval, the tritone, has that B and the F together as the devil in music. It's the thing you're not supposed to do. But then when it resolves, it's like, oh, that's a nice feeling.

So this is like... It works in, like, jazz, but it doesn't work in, like, a kid's song. Well, I would say where it works is in romantic, capital R operatic and symphonic music. And if you'll indulge me, I'd like to do a little classical masters. Indulge your way.

So happy birthday is a song written in the 1890s, and you know who's one of the most popular composers around the world in the late 19th century? Wagner. Boom. Wow. Charlie. A plus plus. You just rip that right out.

I love it. I read the rest of noise. Ricard Wagner, right? He is like the god of music, which is problematic for a number of reasons. One of the biggest ones being that he's a virulent anti-Semite, whose music later becomes the soundtrack of the Third Reich. But I hate him for another reason. And it has a lot to do with these appoggiaturas. It's a very idiosyncratic reason to hate Wagner.

Maybe he hate him for an additional reason? Yeah, yeah. No, no. I mean, I think these symbolize the larger picture of what I dislike about Wagner. It's like this yearning sound, this kind of grand romantic gesture, and everything Wagner ever wrote was just like meant to be on the biggest, largest scale. And he has no sense of shame or modesty, which maybe reminds me of certain figures in the 21st century who I want to avoid. This feels to me like a very kind of indulgent kind of gesture in a certain way. And it's one that you hear all over Wagner.

Take, for instance, the prelude from his opera, or sorry, he preferred to call them music dramas because he's so pretentious. This piece ends with one of these climactic apagiaturas, just like Happy Birthday. An Apatura. So just like in Happy Birthday, we have this crowning moment that's like, it's this very yearning, like, ah, yada, I'm so romantic and great. Grand and look at me. To bring it back, happy birthday.

Every time I hear this moment of this song, Happy birthday, dear so-and-so, and that, I'm like, ugh, get that romantic era 19th century Wagner Lovin, a paja Tura

out of my face. Okay, Charlie, you seem sufficiently belagored by our discussion of 19th century opera. Let's take a quick break And when we come back, let's consider what some alternatives to happy birthday might be. Fabulous.

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Okay, so we have enumerated the reasons why happy birthday is a disaster. It is lugubrious, funereal even. It is really hard to sing with an awkward phrase structure and a big old octave leap. When you get to the name part, no one knows what to do. And finally, maybe this is a very Nate-centric criticism. It brings up associations with romantic opera and my least favorite anti-Semitic composer, Wagner, every time we get that appoggatura at the end. Okay, so if we are in agreement that Happy Birthday is a garbage song that needs to go,

and we didn't even get into the gross kind of use of this song as a patent-troll copyright bludgeon for decades. Right. That's almost another episode entirely. But there was a long time when this song, which should have been in the public domain, was just raking in money for Warner Brothers. Millions of dollars a year. Totally, because they had a copyright on it that meant you couldn't sing this song that clearly belonged to the public domain. Very suspect copyright.

Yes. And finally, thanks to the filmmaker and activist Jennifer Nelson in 2015, a judge struck down that ruling. And now, happy birthday is free for us all to sing all the time. But it's my own personal nightmare. Okay. Okay, so what is out there for those of us who are looking for an alternative to happy birthday? Yeah. I think the most obvious is, for he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow.

That nobody can deny. That nobody can deny. That nobody can deny. I mean, that is so much fun to sing. That was great. Now, I anticipate your criticism. This song has so many gender pronouns. I mean, sure you could swap in she or they as you would please.

Yeah. But I don't know. Maybe that's one mark against it. I mean, is a fellow agendered? I don't know if that's a gendered concept. Fellow? I'm guessing it probably is. I'm guessing it is, but maybe we can rewrite it.

Take back the word? Yeah. Take back fellow. All right. Because otherwise we'd have to say folk. And that is just the hardest word. For they're a jolly good person. For there a jolly good person.

Yeah. That works. It's fine. Yeah. I like celebrating personhood. I mean, that's a great song. I think that should be anyone's go-to when they don't want to sing happy birthday.

Astridic, good person. Okay, what else is out there? We've got some material from the Beatles. There's an issue with this song. Well, it has a number of the same problems that the other birthday song has, including, most importantly, a glaring gap in the middle of the song,

so you're going to have to be like, you say it's your birthday. Awkward pause, awkward pause. You sing it? It's my birthday too, yeah. No, that is highly problematic. I think like some like drumming and clapping. I don't know.

You could all go, they say it's your birthday. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, my birthday too. That could be kind of fun. I actually like that. Yeah, free improv. I think, actually, let's throw that out as an option. That works better than I thought. I love that the song is a blues.

Yeah. I love that it's not, it's ungendered. Yeah. It's solid. It's super celebratory. Definitely a pall composition, you can tell. Very high vocal. Okay.

I spent my whole. life trying to sing the Beatles, thinking I couldn't sing and just I later realized I was a baritone and that Paul can sing an absurd octave. Fast forward to the present and artists are still trying to put out the next big birthday song. In just the last year, there have been two really interesting entries into the great birthday song canon that stretches from the 1890s, happy birthday to you to the Beatles in the 1960s, right up to 2019-2020. Anne-Marie just released a song called Birthday.

And I spoke with Anne-Marie to understand what moved her to write this contemporary pop ode to the birthday. I wanted to write a birthday song for quite a while. I think it came from whenever I was doing a live show, I always just a shout out to the crowd. Whose birthday is it today? And sing the original Happy Birthday. I know that it's one person's birthday. I mean, it's fine. I mean, it's been around my whole life and I've celebrated my birthday too every year.

So I got a bit stupid of it. I was like, I'm going to rock my own one. It's a mate, actually, because I love birthday. So I was basically just explaining my favorite day ever on what I want to do. If you're boring in the original, try my new song out and people seem to laugh at that. So my question to you, Nate, is like, could this work? Well, this is interesting because it's from the perspective of the brink. birthday recipient. I like that. So you kind of flips the script. It's like instead of everyone

singing at you, you sing at everyone. It's my birthday. I feel like that's going to work well for you as someone who anytime that there's a piano in a room will run to it and get everybody singing along. For someone like me who has a little bit more anxiety about performing in public, I don't know. Fair enough. No, I think I think this song is all about safety and numbers. It's a fun choice though. I'm into this track. You know what it does? do? What's that? Limited vocal range. Anybody can sing this one. Not in a bad way. It's just like you can sing it.

Yeah. And I like the sentiments. Like your birthday, do what you want. Where what you want? Kiss who you want. Give me an awful. Eat what you want. Yeah. Emery is not alone in tapping into this birthday zeitgeist. In the last year, an artist we've covered before on the show, Fettywop also has a song out, simply called Birthday. It's a fun song. Yeah, it's a fun song.

Yeah. It's solid. Has the gender issue? Uh-huh. You could swap in again another gender. Also could swap in a name. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. It's your birthday. Charles, it's your birthday. I like it. Yeah. I think this is really catchy. Whether it goes into the sort of birthday pantheon that everyone will be singing, hard to say, but I like it.

It's a contender. Yeah. Okay. There's one glaring omission that we have. haven't discussed yet, that is probably the most viable contender to replace our current horrible birthday song. It's actually a song that Aisha Harris in Slate calls the Black Birthday song, because if you go to a lot of African-American gatherings, you won't hear, happy birthday to you, you'll hear

this. That Stevie Wonder's track from Hotter Than July, Happy Birthday. This is so much fun to sing. It's funky and rhythmic and easy to sing along together. It's got this great energy, no gendered pronouns to worry about. It's just like a party in a box. I absolutely love this song. Another reason I love this song is not just that it's joyous and fun to sing,

but there's a history of the song that I wasn't even aware of. Usually when you hear this song, you just hear the chorus of it that we just listened to. but if you listen to the rest of the lyrics, you realize it's not just a generic birthday song. It's a very specific birthday song. You know it doesn't make much sense. There ought to be a law against anyone who takes offense at a day in your celebration. Who is it? This was a song that Stevie wrote to help campaign for the federal passage of Mark.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday becoming a federal holiday, which it in fact did in 1983, so just three years later, when Ronald Reagan signed it into law. So Stevie Wonder was writing this birthday song with a very specific message and a successful one. I think this song was a big part of the reason that turning MLK Jr.'s birthday into a national holiday got a massive groundswell of support. and it's kind of beautiful to think about that when you're singing this song now, you're not just singing a really fun, funky birthday song.

You're also like paying homage to a great civil rights leader. I think you've made a strong case. Okay, so we've laid out the reasons why the OG happy birthday needs to go. We've offered some replacements. I'd like to leave with a note to our listeners. Give us more suggestions for happy birthday songs that can replace this antiquated 1890s Wagner-loven

Mill Sisters travesty and send them our way on Twitter at Switchdown Pop and bonus challenge if you want to write your own birthday song again make it singable ideally gender neutral fun not lugubrious

like maybe we can generate the next birthday song for the 21st century we'll see be a tall order. And until then, we remain your producers, Nate Sloan. Charlie Harding. Our brilliant editor and engineer is Brandon McFarland. Megan Lubin and Bridget Armstrong are our producers. Abby Barr does social media and Iris Gottlie provides our kick-ass illustrations. Liz Nelson and Nashat Kurwa are executive producers and we're proud members of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Catch us on social media at Switchdown Pop on Twitter and Instagram.

Send us your happy birthday songs. And send us other recommendations as well. It's so often your voices on the show that make it the most fun. We're going to be back again in another week with another episode. And until then, thanks for listening.