Happy Birthday to Whom? An Investigation into the Sequoyah Birthday Song
Before we get started, let’s cover what you need to know to adequately answer the question: “What is the Sequoyah Birthday Song?” It’s the song Sequoyahns sing, yell, and shout to one another when celebrating a birthday. But shouldn’t it be called “Sequoyah’s Birthday Song?” Maybe it should be, but because of its specificity to Sequoyah it has been claimed by the school and has been spread to the world as the “Sequoyah Birthday Song.” The birthday song has spread so far that it even can be found on USC’s digital folklore archive as the Sequoyah Birthday song.
People like the Sequoyah Birthday Song for a multitude of reasons, but there is one reason that is more universal than others: it’s just better than the rest. “It’s a really good song,” says Eli Regardie ‘25. “I think it’s fun. It’s faster than ‘Happy Birthday,’ so it gives some extra pizzazz to birthdays.” Ila Brookshire ’27 doubled down: “I hate the [traditional] Happy Birthday song. It's just too slow. It's just not happy enough.” But the Sequoyah Birthday Song is.
The Sequoyah Birthday Song is a much-beloved tradition, and one of the only to span K-8 and high school campuses—but how did it get started? It currently has two main variants, one for each campus. The high school variant has claps, while the K-8 version is more melodic and includes a celebratory “woohoo!” Some assume it’s a Sequoyah original, like a lot of traditional songs that originated at the K-8, including “Corrina del Fuego,” the “Anza-B Song”, and “Scary Letters.” Brookshire and Harper Gowen ’26 thought the song was an original composed by either a former parent or P.E. teacher. However, there is a different explanation; it all started at the K-8 campus in 1992, 32 years ago.
To discover the true history of the Sequoyah Birthday Song, I traveled to the K-8 campus and spoke with Shari Majumder, library specialist and the song’s originator. So how did it happen? During Majumder’s first Staff Week, the prep week for staff before school starts for kids, it was the birthday of former teacher and current education specialist, Ann Liashkov. The staff sang Liashkov “Happy Birthday.” Pretty normal, right? But Sequoyah is not normal, so it didn’t end there. Retired 5-6th grade teacher Art Phiffer made a comment, expressing how great it would be if they knew other birthday songs. Majumder, who had previous experience as a music teacher, piped up and shared that she knew three separate birthday songs. One of the songs she taught the staff was the chorus of the John McCutcherton original “Cut the Cake,” which goes as follows:
It makes me think of the good old days
Happy birthday to you!
You sure grew out of your baby ways
Happy birthday to you!
(7th 23rd, 92nd) birthday we wish you many more
Health and wealth and friends by the score
Cut the cake and let's eat some more
Happy birthday to you!
Majumder chose this one out of the three because “this is by far the most fun one.”
John McCutcheon is a folk singer-songwriter who also wrote the song “Christmas in the Trenches” and an accompanying picture book. Majumder taught both “Cut the Cake” and “Christmas in the Trenches” to her and Pfeiffer’s classes, and during that process the song was adopted. Phiffer and Majumder started teaching more and more classes the song, until it eventually became the beloved tradition it is today. “Cut the Cake '' is part of a longer song chronicling the protagonist Mikey’s life through a series of birthdays from seven to 92 and is quite sweet. The Barefoot Times suggests you try either reading the lyrics or listening to the song. If you do get around to listening to the song (chorus starts at around 25 seconds) you might notice modern Sequoyahns sing it quite differently than the original, but that’s not on purpose. Majumder explains, “[Sequoyah] doesn’t sing it the way John McCutcheon wrote it, but we're singing it the way Sequoyah sings it. And it's really, really hard to change the whole school. I've tried over the years. The first several years people said it correctly… It's a little trickier and people have just simplified it basically.” And as Majumder points out “folk songs especially evolve.” These songs certainly have evolved, in two separate ways; the K-8 version and the high school version.
K8 Version
It makes me think of the good old days. Happy birthday to you!
You’ve sure grown out of your baby ways. Happy birthday to you!
It’s your ____ birthday—-wish you many more
Health and wealth and friends by the score. Let’s cut the cake and eat some more
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Woohoo!
HS Version
It makes me think of the good old days. Happy birthday to you! *Clap, Clap*
You’ve sure grown out of your baby ways. Happy birthday to you! *Clap, Clap*
It’s your ____ birthday—wish you many more, health and wealth and friends by the score
Let’s cut the cake and eat some more. Happy birthday to you! *Clap, Clap*
Happy birthday to you! *Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap*
At the high school, the Sequoyah Birthday Song is sung during Morning Meeting to the person whose birthday it is. As a member of the Morning Meeting Committee, Regardie explained, “It's always an integral part of Morning Meeting, when we can make time for it.” However, there were some complaints, as Gowen recalled, “I have heard some complaints that the freshmen should just know it, and that we shouldn’t put it on the screen. And I think there’s also some grammatical errors on the thing that keep projecting on the screen. And I think that needs to be addressed.” Regardie noted the lyrics projected are undergoing changes and there are also spacing issues preventing correct lyrics. The changes shown were blacking out random words in the lyrics, causing chaos and laughter. Brookshire said, “I overheard some conversations that it was in order to make us memorize things. I just thought it was funny because they looked a lot like curse words.” The Morning Meeting Committee has found yet another way to inject fun into the already more fun version of a birthday song.
Before you leave this article feeling “very mad,” because, like Brookshire, you feel like your “sense of individuality has been taken away from” you, take solace in what Majumder calls the “funny serendipity” that repurposed “Cut the Cake” for Sequoyah’s Birthday Song. Majumder points out a reason it might be so beloved is that “kids love it because it’s unique to their world.” Isn’t it the best feeling to feel special and loved on your birthday? Ultimately that’s what the original “Cut the Cake” is about, and its use as the Sequoyah Birthday Song continues the story of the song as it spreads joy into our world.