October is Wriggle and Rhyme’s birthday month. We’re celebrating our (sweet) sixteenth birthday this year!
I love birthdays. They’re a chance to celebrate another year of life, spoil someone with a thoughtful gift and eat some cake.
I started thinking about the rituals around birthdays in our culture. There are often candles on the cake and before the cake is cut, WE SING.
Different cultures have different rituals, but there’s a song that is widely synonymous around the world with birthdays.
This got me thinking, why do we SING at birthdays?
If you think about it, we usually only spontaneously sing together at a gathering of some kind – whether it’s a wedding, a funeral, a church meeting, sports match etc.
Often the singing is there to demonstrate the unity of our purpose as a group. I know that seems a bit deep for a birthday party, but I think there’s something to it.
Singing demonstrates to the birthday boy or girl that we are standing, united with them.
So much so, that we sing!
There are definitely deeper cultural or anthropological meanings that I could dig up, as to how singing in groups came about.
But here are some FUN FACTS for now:
According to the Guinness Book of Records (1998), the English version of “Happy Birthday to you” is the most recognised song in the english language.
It’s also been translated into 18 other languages.
Here’s an interesting LINK if you’d like to explore more.
For now, I just love that we SING at birthday parties.
