Happy Birthday Lyrics

Lyric discussion by @nthony 

Cover art for Happy Birthday lyrics by Altered Images

This is about getting out of a bath into a nice night on your birthday & finding your friends hiding in a closet with your birthday cake. I'm assuming she's naked which is why she got 'such a fright!'. But she is asking if she was the one in the closet with a cake & you were the one getting out of the bath, would you also have enjoyed the surprise, inferring that she enjoyed it. Pretty quirky but great tiny vocals & Japanese sounding atonal guitar chords in this one with a punk spine. Great little song. Took me a while to work out what the hell it was about. Still not 100% certain.

My Interpretation

@@nthony I didn't interpret the song that way… until about 8 years later, when Red Dwarf started, with Claire playing Christine Kochanski, Lister's quasi-love-interest. Because organizing a big surprise party for Kochanski (probably four and a half months late for her actual birthday), without considering that she might be getting out of the bath naked when everyone jumped out to yell surprise… that's pure Lister.

Anyway, after 35 years of this being the only Altered Images song any 80s club, flashback night, etc. will ever play, I'm a little burnt out on this song—but it's still hard not to dance around...