top of page
donogipincautu

My Birthday is not about me, it's a chance to connect with friends and family



This song is about everybody's favorite subject, depression. The first set of lyrics convey this quite nicely, as the narrator tells how, even though he doesn't WANT it to rain, it still does anyway, and if the world were to crumble away into nothingness tomorrow he's holding out on the hope that reincarnation is a lie.




My Birthday is not about me, (not entirely anyway)



This song involves what I think is one of the cleverest of TMBG's lyrics: "It's not my birthday, so why do you lunge out at me?" I think this is a reference to surprise parties: friends lunge out to wish you a happy birthday. However, since it's not his birthday, that means the action of lunging is more violent than well-meant. To be more specific about the first interpretation, I think the song is about being depressed about a relationship, as shown by the chorus: "When the word comes down, 'Never more will be around'" leaves out WHAT will never more be around, perhaps showing that the narrator doesn't want to talk about it. I think that this line cuts mentioning the relationship, which will cease to be, but the narrator will wish she was there and apologizes for being "less than we could bear". The narrator notes that "I'm not the only dust my mother raised". Possibly the "mother" here is Mother Earth, a reference to the mother of all mankind. With this line, I think the narrator is saying "But I realize that there are other fish in the ocean." The narrator is blaming himself for a failed relationship and becoming extremely depressed by it. --Chuckie


Now, I'm not a religious person, HOWEVER I've always though this was a song about a very disgruntled Jesus walking around on Christmas, getting drunk and feeling frustrated about how the Earth turned out. Historically, Dec. 25 was semi-arbitrary date picked for when J.C. was born, and only He could know when that day really was. I'd get really annoyed if everyone got my birthday mixed up, I imagine he would too. THEN there is the "I'm not the only dust my mother raised" line. Jesus had a brother (James, I think?) who kinda gets forgotten about. As everybody is running around being happy and Celebrating the wrong day of his birth, Jesus is spending his Christmas thinking of new ways to remake the universe. As he says: "When that Gray World crumbles like a cake, I'll be hanging from the hope that I'll never see that recipe again."As he walks he thinks about a new way for creatures to move, a new way for creatures to think. -Anyway, it's a neat idea, and not entirely without precident: They write a BUNCH of Christmas songs, and Jesus has been mentioned in a few songs, especially early ones. -Devin T. Quin


My dorm floor has a tradition of throwing floor members into the shower, on their birthday.For me, the song is about someone on my floor who is trying to get out of being showered. -- TheBlunderbuss 05:04, 2 Mar 2006 (CST)


This is one of my favorite lines by the Johns. It's sarcasm. What's your birthday? It's YOUR day, all about you. Everyone is supposed to be nice to you. "Lunging out" at someone (hurting them in any way with little or no antagonism by the victim) on this special day would be the meanest and lowest thing someone could do. The speaker is so depressed about his life that he's sarcastically asking his wife, "Hey, it's not my birthday, why are you ruining my life NOW?". GENIUS


I think we all have the tendency to let our own lives have too big of an impact on our interpretation of songs. Freud called it projection. So I feel with a song as vague as this one, it's near impossible to know exactly what john was trying to say. If you ask me, I think this song is about something depressing that is masked with the metaphore of a rainy day. In the first two lines john admits he has as much control over the situation as he does the weather. The end of the first verse is about how when this ordeal comes to an end, he'll be happy to put it behnind him, and "never seeing that recipe again" means he never wants to revisit it/feel as badly as he does now. At first this song seems like a very pessimistic song with a bleak outlook on the situation at hand: "It's not my birthday" seems like a very ironic way of saying hes having a bad day and he talking about drinking in the second verse. But I feel the attitude of the song is captured in the line "But the sound upon the roof is only water". He's saying that the rain is nothing too serious and is underplaying the situation. This line allows you to view the rest of the song with an optimistic spin. Rather than a dirge about how horrible his life is, it turns into a song about how he's going through a tough time, but it's nothing to fret about, and nothing to take too seriously. I don't think we'll ever know if john was speaking in general or had a specific ordeal in mind, but i feel this is what he was trying to get across.


It just might be about abortion. "It's not my birthday so why do you lunge out at me?" and "I was less than we could bear", as in bearing a pregnancy. "Discreetly I should pour through the keyhole / Or evaporate completely" also goes with this explanation. "And I'm not the only dust my mother raised" - does this mean that fetus's mother is promiscuous? However, I have no idea what the rain, the lawn, walking and thinking would mean in this case, so I give up.


I think that this song is about the narrator realizing how little control he has over his world. He can't tell the rain to fall, but it does anyway. The lawn gets wet, despite his attempts to stop it.


"It's not my birthday / It's not today" delusional ramblings (Otherwise, he's going to die today, so indeed, he is not being born, quite the contrary.)"It's not my birthday so why do you lunge out at me?" lunge out at me with medicine, etc. He's going to die anyway, so by his logic, why bother?"When the word comes down 'Never more will be around'" He's going to die."Though I wish we were there / I was less than we could bear" He doesn't want to die, but the world can no longer sustain his presence."And I'm not the only dust my mother raised" He is not alone in having pneumonia, "dust" referring to his relative uselessness, unable to move, work, etc, the mother is disease. In essence, the pneumonia has caused him to grow into something useless.


My interpretation about this is that the singer is addressing his fear of death. It's typical, on one's birthday, to feel "Oh my god, I'm getting older". Since it's not his birthday, he asks this demon, "why do you lunge out at me?" Why now?


The train of thought keeps going off the tracks, trying to act like something else, trying to go where it's been uninvited. These morbid thoughts are unwelcome. This is not a birthday party, and if it were, they would not be invited anyway.


His train of thought keeps rolling off track and also time keeps getting away from him "like a runaway train." A train that goes off of it's track is trying to act like it's a different vehicle, one that doesn't need rails. The rails are where the train has been "invited" to go and it's going somewhere else, where it's been uninvited. This is interesting because uninvited doesn't just mean somewhere it hasn't been invited, but rather in all the possibility in the world, its invitation to these other paths been specifically revoked. Its freedom is has been taken. His plans for life were set on a certain path but it has gone off the rails and he no longer has any control of it. His lawn gets wet though he's witheld his consent. He tried to exert some control over his life, tried to gain some measure of autonomy by "going off the track" and instead he has lost all ability to navigate entirely just like a train off a track. He went from being stuck in a particular life path (on the track) to being on a chaotic spiral where he can't steer (off the track). In both instances he no longer has any say over where he goes. The use of "uninvited" also is playing with the idea of birthdays and invitations.


Usually we think about our increasing old age and our increasing proximity to death on our birthdays, but today these thoughts are lunging out at him, unbidden into his mind despite the fact that it is not even his birthday. The "you" here is his thoughts, the world, his life, the feelings of depression, helplessness in the face of the steady march to the grave and wanting it all to just be over already.


There are 4 specific questions I ask myself to deepen my learning and grow my understanding of myself. Every birthday, I take out my journal and write my answers down. And every birthday, I learn something new about myself and feel a little more cheerful and grateful. Here are the 4 questions you should answer in your birthday journal.


My birthday is tomorrow, sep 8, and honestly im not really happy or excited about it. im not even looking forward to it. my friends and family are more excited than i am. i dont know why im sad, or feeling really super duper down when thinking of my birthday, and its not even about aging. a month ago i was so excited to finally turn 16 but now, i just feel like its worthless to throw or celebrate a party for my birthday. its just me after all. its not a big deal. having a birthday feels like i just completed a really hard level, and moving on to the next hard one.


Just to add, I know that my Ex should not of been contacting me when he had a new girl, obviously something wasnt completely right with that relationship otherwise I would not have left, so I know that , that bit of it it not entirely my fault. I have questioned whether he had really moved on with his new girl, but if he hasnt then thats his issue now. If his texts are genuinely only about keeping in contact then i may have been a little rude and disrespected his efforts, but it could also be a way of him keeping hold of me and me being an option if things dont work out with his girl. Im not sure which one it is but im not being contact with him to find out. Life moves on. 2ff7e9595c


0 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page