Happy Birthday Without a Shirt!

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kimball Richardson from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hey, Kimball, welcome.

What’s up? What can we help you with?

So, about 23 years ago, when my wife and I got married, and I first met her family, my wife Sheila,

One of the first times we were all together was at a birthday party.

And her family sang the birthday song, as, you know, everybody does.

But at the very end of it, they put this little tag on it.

So it was like, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,

You know, blah, blah, blah, happy birthday to you without a shirt. And I was like, what was that?

You know, well, they didn’t, you know, they looked nonplussed, like nothing had ever happened. So

I was like, what, what was that? So anyway, I started asking about it, asking my wife and her

Parents. Nobody knows where it came from. They just always sang it that way. A few years ago,

So my father-in-law was taking piano lessons, and the instructor said, well, why don’t I teach you a happy birthday song?

It’s kind of easy to start out on.

And at the very end of it, he said, without a shirt, you know, like that.

And so my father-in-law was like, oh, my gosh, how did you know that?

I’ve never heard that.

Anyway, as it turns out, they both are from St. Louis.

Then they’re wondering, is this a St. Louis thing?

But anyway, I just thought it was an interesting question.

I never, ever heard anybody sing it that way before.

And even the people that were singing it don’t know where it came from.

Whoa, there’s a ton of stuff here.

You know, I was born in St. Louis and have a lot of my family,

Three sides of my family living around there and have strong roots to Missouri.

And I don’t know that version.

But it strikes me as really interesting that it’s the same melody,

And many more, which people sing.

Right.

My family growing up would, I mean, I remember at some point people started doing the cha-cha-cha version of Happy Birthday, which I found to be unnecessary, but they seemed to enjoy it.

This song is so old and so common that it has fallen almost into folklore with all the different versions that people sing.

Yeah, yeah.

I have heard Without a Shirt every once in a while.

And there’s a 90-something-year-old woman on YouTube who sings it.

Yeah.

She’s been given a birthday cake.

And she sings Without a Shirt.

Yeah.

She doesn’t sing without a shirt.

I mean, she’s wearing a shirt.

She sings, quote, without a shirt.

Yeah, she adds it on there.

So it’s not just you guys, but we don’t know why.

I mean, you would think if you were going to be really transgressive, you’d say without pants or something.

Right, right.

Maybe that’s a good, clean fun to say without a shirt.

It’s a little bit transgressive.

It’s a little naughty.

Yeah.

I mean, it kind of reminds me of the game that we used to play in church, in Baptist church growing up, Between the Sheets, where you would go through the hymnal while the preacher was talking and just surreptitiously see these hymn titles like Abide With Me, and then you’d mentally add Between the Sheets.

Lean on my ample arm between the sheets.

I stand all amazed between the sheets.

It’s sort of like that.

Oh, my gosh.

I’ve got one more version for you, too.

This is at the end of the song.

You want to hear this?

So at the end of the song, you say, cha-cha-cha, ooh-la-la, pizza in the cafeteria.

Scooby-Doo on Channel 2, Frankenstein on Channel 9, Big Fat Lady on Channel 80, a whole lot more on Channel 4.

Oh, wow.

I can’t wait till my birthday.

Are you going to sing that to me, Grant?

Yes, yes.

What’s funny about this is if you Google these, a lot of these came up when I was searching around for this

Where teachers are trying to stomp out these versions in their classrooms and utterly failing.

Oh, yeah.

Because they become like a little too much, and they kind of sometimes take away from the spirit of the occasion.

The kids are more interested in the song than they are in the birthday person.

Right, so they make them sing the song really fast so they can’t get all the cha-cha-chas in there.

Yeah, absolutely.

No cha-cha-chas.

Well, something tells me we’re going to hear lots of other versions now that you’ve put it out there.

Yes, I think we will.

And if your family sings the Without a Shirt version, let us know.

We’ll maybe figure out if there’s a geographic center to that.

Thanks so much for your call.

This was a good one.

Thank you guys so much from Indianapolis. We really appreciate it.

All right. Take care.

Your birthday song versions to 877-929-9673.

We want you to sing it into the phone.

Or if you must, you can send it an email and text form to words@waywordradio.org.

No birthday suits, please.

Yes, please.