The Most Sung Song Ever
by Oliver Carlos
What’s the most popular song in the history of the world? No, it’s not a Beatles hit, nor a Michael Jackson beat. It’s not even that Jose Mari Chan carol, even though it gets sung daily from September to December every year. It’s not a church hymn either. It’s actually the “Happy Birthday To You” song! While church songs are sung on Sundays only, that birthday song is sung by millions of people from every corner of the world every second, every minute, every day. There are more 8 billion people in the world, and only 365 days in one year. Thus, there are around 22 million people sharing birthdays on a single day. A conservative estimate is maybe just half of that number celebrate their birthday and sing the birthday song. So, the Happy Birthday To You song gets sung 11 million times in a day, every day of the year!
In this age where Facebook rules, it’s so easy to spot friends who celebrate the same birthday. We see it on our computers and smartphone each morning we turn them on. There are always multiple friends celebrating birthdays each day.
Meanwhile, here are some more birthday trivia: The tradition of having birthday cakes in birthday parties began with the Germans in the late 1700s. The “Happy Birthday To You” song is attributed to a pair of American sisters, Patty and Mildred Hill. It was said that they composed the song in 1893 for their kindergarten pupils, and the original lyrics was actually “good morning to you.” Lastly, it was only in 2016 that the song became a public domain song.
Birthdays are nice occasions because we get to pause and look back at the blessings of the past. It’s a brief stop over in our life journey, a time to recharge by getting greetings, well-wishes, and encouragements from the people dear to us. Most importantly, it’s also a time to set our eyes more on God, who is the source of all our blessings. Birthday celebrations must be celebrations of God’s faithfulness on the celebrator. A Bible verse talks about a point in a year wherein people do this, to thank God for his abundant grace bestowed on his people.
“You start the new year with a good harvest. You end the year with many crops.” (Psalm 65:11, ERV)
In this song, David stops for a while on the anniversary of the planting season, which is also the mark of the end of the harvest season. The songwriter acknowledges the goodness of God for the whole cycle of planting and reaping. One cycle done, another one up and coming. He’s going to bank on his gracious God as he faces a new year, and he’s confident that he will be blessed anew just like in the past cycles.
If we read the other parts of that same psalm (verses 6 to 10), we can see that God’s faithfulness and goodness were described as existing even before the mountains and seas were formed. It also says in verses 2 and 5 that anyone can come to God with prayer requests, and God is gracious enough to answer them. Indeed, God is worthy of praise and thanksgiving. And the good news is, he is like that not only on birthdays, but on every day of the year.
Friend, when is your birthday? We don’t need to wait for that day to celebrate. Let’s do it now, because God has been good to you recently, and he will continue to do so in the future.
