B-side "Riddle House" Genre Post-punk | Format 7" Length 3:59 | |
Released 16 February 1980 (1980-02-16) Recorded Richmond Recorders, Melbourne, 1980 | ||
"Happy Birthday" is a 1980 song and by The Boys Next Door. It was released as a single on 16 February 1980 on Missing Link. The song is not related to the popular birthday song "Happy Birthday to You". The first album it appeared on was The Birthday Party. It was later included as track two on the 1992 compilation Hits.
The release of the single was part of the band's rebranding of themselves as The Birthday Party before their relocation to London. It is notable for several reasons. The mundanity of the song's lyrical subject matter, an eleven-year-old boy's birthday party, contrasts strongly to the discordance of the music. The song is also a showcase for the sub-vocalisations that marked Nick Cave's early singing style, including grunts, wordless shrieks and on two separate occasions an impersonation of a barking dog. The song also displays the band's innovative use of two lead guitarists playing two separate riffs.