Back in the days before Facebook was popular, there was this service called Livejournal. When someone’s birthday came around, you would do a post wishing them “Happy Birthday”. I thought that was too simple, and wanted to sing a birthday song. Now, I absolutely detest “Happy Birthday to You”, preferring instead the song that was song in my childhood in Los Angeles: that is, the “Birthday Cake Polka” (i.e., “put another candle on your birthday cake“) as sung by Sheriff John Rovack, a children’s TV host on Channel 11. That quickly turned into a poll asking people their favorite birthday song, which was first posted in 2005.

The purpose of this page is to collect pointers to subpages with the lyrics to all the birthday songs made available over the years:

• A Very Merry Unbirthday [Sherman/Sherman]
• Another Candle [Jerry Herman-"Parade"]
• Back When We Were Beautiful [Berg Matraca-"Good 'Ol Girls"]
• Birthday [Beatles]
• Birthday [Sugar Cubes]
• Birthday Cake [Cibo Matto]
• Birthday Cake Polka [John Rovack, 1952]
• Birthday Cake Polka (Gluten-Free) [John Rovack]
• Birthday Dirge [Trad.]
• Birthday Massacre [Birthday Massacre]
• Birthday Song [Golden Bough]
• Born Never Asked [Laurie Anderson]
• Cut the Cake [Tina Liza Jones]
• Happy Birthday [Altered Images]
• Happy Birthday [Concrete Blond]
• Happy Birthday [I'm Getting My Act Together...]
• Happy Birthday [Stevie Wonder]
• Happy Birthday [Weird Al Yankovic]
• Happy Birthday [Zorba the Greek]
• Happy Birthday, Erwin [Jay Livingston, Ray Evans - "Let It Ride"]
• Happy Birthday, Ralph [Atom and his Package]
• Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen [Neil Sedaka]
• Happy Birthday To You [Hill/Smith, 1893]
• Happy Clappy Birthday (Gwendolyn)
• Happy Happy Birthday Song [Arrogant Worms]
• Hubappuby Bubirthdubay Tubo Yubou [Zoom]
• I’d Rather Be Dead [Harry Nilsson]
• Joyeux anniversaire
• Las Mañanitas
• Make Your Own Party [Marcy/Zina]
• Modern Maturity [Tom Paxton]
• Older [They Might Be Giants]
• The Pirate Birthday Song [Heather Alexander]
• 30/90 [Jonathan Larsen, from "tick... tick... Boom!"]
• This is your birthday song, it isn’t very long [Unknown Artist]
• Unhappy Birthday [The Smiths]
• Yom Huledet [Batler/Datz]

* (Note: Some additional songs may be found through this page)

This is the place to comment if you want a birthday song on Livejournal, Facebook, or Dreamwidth (the indicated service needs to send or provide me with a birthday reminder). Just indicate the song, the service, your username (if the last two are supplied by your signin), and if necessary, the month and day of birth.

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