It’s a testament to Stevie’s legacy that, around the world and all year ’round, he’s able to bring strangers together with a song written to honor someone who lived his life trying to do exactly that. It’s wonderful.” The fact that there are some nonblack folks who have been exposed to it is also great. “No matter where the song is started,” one respondent to my poll wrote, “if someone else starts singing it, all black people in the vicinity join-whether they know the birthday boy/girl or not. Nevertheless, I’m glad that Stevie wrote it and that its chorus is still a signifier of kinship for so many black people. Maybe peak Stevie Corn, right alongside “ Ebony and Ivory.” The verses are earnestly clumsy (“The whole day should be spent/ In full remembrance/ Of those who lived and died for the oneness of all people”) and the synthesizers are cheesy. Stevie’s “Happy Birthday,” on the other hand, is joyful and raucous. This song has no relation to the nursery rhyme of the general title. This is clearly true, since the traditional “Happy Birthday” isn’t even celebratory it’s a staid musical obligation in the bleak face of aging. Wonder, a social activist, was one of the main figures in the campaign to have the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Regardless of their race, a good portion of respondents who were familiar with the song agreed that it’s the better birthday song. This song has no relation to the nursery rhyme of the general title.'Happy Birthday' is a 1981 single written, produced and performed by Stevie Wonder for the Motown label.
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