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Episode 17: The Black Happy Birthday Song
One of the best things about being Black is the feeling of culture. There are things that Black people do because our parents did them, because their parents did them, and it just keeps going on. I guess that’s the same in every culture, but I’m Black, and so for me when these moments of shared culture would happen growing up, I assumed it was just a Black thing. One of the best ones is the Black Happy Birthday Song, - it's actually just called Happy Birthday, by Stevie Wonder.
When I was a kid as far back as I can remember, whenever it was anyone’s birthday and my Mom was around, after singing the regular Happy Birthday Song, “Happy Birthday to you”, my Mom would immediately bust out the “Happy Birthday to ya” version, and clap, and only the Black people would join in or know what she was alluding to.
What’s funny is, when I was younger, I didn’t realize that this wasn’t just a song that Black people were all born knowing, but that it was written in 1980, 11 years before I was born, by Stevie Wonder, who is literally a music genius. I’d never heard the original song because my parents didn’t play very much secular music and somehow it just never landed in my lexicon of songs your parents play when you’re a kid, even though they ALWAYS had music playing in the house. Two years ago when the pandemic hit and many of us found ourselves with loads of extra time, I went back and listened through all of Stevie Wonder’s music, and the Happy Birthday Song came up. For some reason, it didn’t sound anything like I expected it to, except for the hook part that my Mom would always sing.