birthdays & love songs

i’m bad with dates. not just when i need an excuse for why i forgot to wish you, but also in an examination hall, when i need to fill out the silly sequence of numbers that identify that particular rotation of the third planet from the sun on its silly tilted axis- on my answer sheets, and i b) embarrassingly sit and count the months on my fingers after i a) bravely ask the invigilator for the date.

when i meet my own feelings about my birthday with honesty, i find the quiet desire to not hate my existence for one day creeping up on me, the passing of time, branded by every wish, the invitations, the reminders of everything that changed. i remember celebrating my 18th birthday during covid with a bunch of videos my mom and my friends made for company. i remember crying uncontrollably by the end of the day because i didn't know who i was. love flocks around you on your birthday to cushion the impact of falling against time.

“and i hate to do this on your birthday. happy birthday btw.” billie eilish sang on the song that made me fall in love with her: party favour.

the entire song is phrased like a breakup over a voice message that she sends to someone on their birthday. dick move. but god. it hits exactly where it hurts. “it's not you, it's me and all that other bullshit. you know that's bullshit, don't you babe?”. ?????. the happy birthday btw chorus lands like a gut punch because there's a special kind of tension between a lover/ex & you on their birthday.

in all too well, taylor swift waits for jake gyllenhaal to show up at her 21st birthday, & her father tells her, “it's supposed to be fun, turning 21”, & in those moments, let down, she knows the relationship is over. let alone that it is hardly fun, turning 21, what's interesting is how the birthday goes can function as a litmus test for how the relationship is.

in moon song, phoebe bridges fights with their partner about john lennon (self proclaimed domestic abuser btw) until she cries, and they go to bed, upset. then in her dream, it's her birthday, he's singing, and she's never seen him smiling so big. the dream projects an ideal, romanticised version of the relationship over the real details. & interestingly, the setting her mind conjours up is her birthday.

FUN FACT, most of us hypothesize the song is about connor oberst (i write this while listening to their collab album, better oblivion community center, great for crying, etc) who has his own birthday song called at the bottom of everything with his band, bright eyes. the spoken word intro of the song narrates a plane crash where a woman turns to the man beside her and asks “where are we going?” and he says, “we’re going to a party. it's a birthday party. it's your birthday party! happy birthday darling, we love you very very very much.” and when they splash into the deep blue sea at the bottom of everything, connor sings “i found out i am really no one”. sounds like a birthday party, no?

in teenage dream, olivia rodrigo laments 19, singing “they all say that it gets better, but what if i don't?”

johnny is a recurring character in st. vincent's lyrics. “marry me john” she sang on her debut album, then turning him into “prince johnny” on her fourth album, a character struggling with gender identity, where there's also clearly more distance between them, and finally “happy birthday johnny” she sings in the next album, “wherever you are.”

it's so strange man, one birthday you're hand drawing an entire animated recreation of your first meeting with a boy, and the next year, you're over thinking if you're the type of exes that can still wish each other happy birthday.

& sometimes, you bond over how stupid & annoying birthdays are and build a friendship over that shared existential hatred for birthdays.

when dodie released she on youtube in 2014, every lesbian i know wept. “she tastes like birthday cake & story time and fall” she sang on the bridge, “but to her, i taste of nothing at all.”

the bittersweet of birthdays, the two simultaneous truths, the hating growing older but having someone you would want to do it with, it gives birthdays their romantic edge, it colours music, & like that wendy cope poem about oranges, we can say “i love you. i’m glad i exist.”

you make me glad i exist.