In what I always consider an unusual coincidence, my father and Chris’ father were both born on December 14th, which means they share a birthday.

Oh yes, I know, if you look it up the odds of two people being born on the same day of the month it turns out it isn’t really that unusual, given all the people in the world, and the fact there are only 366 days in a year. But still, I find it striking when I know two people born on the same day, and having two people who are both related to me have the same birthday seems even more remarkable.

But I digress. I bring all this up today so that we can wish both my father and my father-in-law a Happy Birthday in German, since I happened to have learned this in my class this fall.

Now in Italy, the standard song to sing to people on their birthday was just a song to the tune of the “Happy Birthday” song that is sung in North America, only with the lyrics translated in to Italian. And that turns out to be the standard thing to do here in Germany, too. So, when a woman in my German class recently had a birthday, we had a little party in class and learned the German lyrics to sing to the tune:

Zum Geburtstag viel Glück,
zum Geburtstag viel Glück,
zum Geburtstag, liebe(r) [name],
zum Geburtstag viel Glück!

Although in the dictionary Zum Geburtstag viel Glück is translated as “Happy Birthday to you”, that’s because of the song, I think. It really means something more like “many good wishes for your birthday”. Here’s a YouTube clip — note, it’s not of my class singing!— where you can hear the German lyrics sung to the Happy Birthday tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5OVGF6UPkk&feature=related

It turns out, though, that there’s actually another rather popular German birthday song, too. It’s called Wie schön, dass du geboren bist, “How nice that you were born”. While we didn’t learn it in class that day, our teachers did perform it for us. It’s quite a bit more complex than the standard Happy Birthday refrain, though. Here’s a clip I found of the song on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySde4S6F7zw

Click here to see the German lyrics; click here to see the English translation.

Now, while I looked up this information last month, right after the party in class, I deliberately was waiting until today to write this post. So, I will confess I hadn’t really processed the meaning of the lyrics. Which was too bad, since if I had, I would have realized what the weather was going to be like today from reading the first verse:

Today it can rain,
storm or snow,
because you yourself are beaming
like sunshine.
Today is your birthday,
that’s why we’re celebrating.
All your friends, are happy for you.

Heute kann es regnen,
stürmen oder schnei’n,
denn du strahlst ja selber
wie der Sonnenschein.
Heut ist dein Geburtstag,
darum feiern wir,
alle deine Freunde,
freuen sich mit dir.

In just the space of the morning here in Tübingen today, we had first gray skies, then blue skies and sunshine, then showers, then a truly amazing rain storm with sheets of horizontal rain, it was that windy! And then by 2pm we had blue skies and sunshine again. I’m on the lookout now for snow, based on what’s promised in that song, but hopefully we don’t really need to take things that far. 😉

Anyway, to my father and Stan, and anyone else whose birthday it happens to be, Wie schön, dass du geboren bist, Zum Geburtstag viel Glück, and a very Happy Birthday!