Happy Birthday - Altered Images

Year: 1981

Artist: Altered Images

Hit Song: I could be Happy, See Those Eyes

Album: Happy Birthday

Birthdays are symbols of another year gone by, since your last birthday the earth has completed one journey around the sun, there have been more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world. You will have had about 1,460 dreams; world population has grown by around 76,570,430, and in the time it takes you to read this another five babies will have been born.  

‘Happy Birthday’ was the most recognized song in the English Language and was translated in more than 18 languages. It’s nice to know that there are other melodies for this traditional tune to celebrate the anniversary of someone’s birth and it’s a subgenre of rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock and It’s called New Wave.

All these time I thought this song was sung by the Brit rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees if you are not familiar with the group try listening to Hong Kong Garden and you will get the similarity. (Refer to this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6lxuYme-8c). I first came to know the song in the 80’s while watching John Huge’s ‘Sixteen Candles’, a coming-of-age film starring Molly Ringwald. The group responsible for this track were an early 1980s Scottish New Wave / post-punk band named Altered Images. Led by Clare Grogan on vocals and 4 more ex-school friends, they sent a demo tape to Siouxsie and the Banshees who eventually gave them the break in the recording scene. According to Wikipedia “Happy Birthday was the band’s third single and their biggest hit. The song reached number 2 in the UK (for three weeks) in October 1981, catapulting the band to fame. They quickly became established as one of the biggest new wave acts around”

Robert Southe was on the spot when he uttered this quote “Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life” This is what this blog all about… the first twenty years of my life and the music that once moved me…music that once, washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life…

Happy birthday

Happy
happy birthday in a hot bath
To those nice
nice nights.
I remember always
always I got such a fright.
Seeing them in my dark cupboard with my great big cake.
If they were me
if they were me
And I was you and I was you -
If they were me and I was you
Would you have liked a present too.

Happy
happy birthday in a hot bath . . .

Happy birthdayhappy birthday - . . .