Birthday

“Birthday” is the latest release from British singer Anne-Marie and her upcoming album. The song was written by Anne-Marie, Delacey, Keith Sorrell & Warren Felder, with Felder also doing the production under “Oak”.

“Birthday” is a birthday song about doing what you want on your birthday. In an filmed interview with Genius.com, Anne-Marie explained the inspiration behind the track and what the song-writing process was like:

Genius: What inspired this song?

Anne-Marie: I actually wrote this just in October, which is so not long ago, and it was coming up to Christmas and I was thinking every time Christmas comes around, the same Christmas songs are played, but how many birthday songs are there really? So I went into the studio and I said to the producer, Oak, “I want to write a birthday song,” And he was like, “Whoa, I’m not sure about this.” Everyone was not on it basically, and they were like, “How’d you do that? How’d you write a birthday song?” And he just put down some chords that you hear in at the start, and I just started singing the chorus and everyone was like, “Okay, maybe this will work.” And then we just did it really quickly. Everyone was pleasantly surprised that we were able to write a birthday song.

G: What was the song-writing process like?

A-M: I wrote this song with Oak Felder and Delacey and I want to say it was the best day ever. I always seem to write quite angry songs and emotional songs. I’d find that easier. Really dig in deep and talking about it, but I felt like I needed to write a song that made me happy for once. I felt like you can’t really write a sad birthday song. Well, you can, but I didn’t want to do that. So with the chorus, it’s like, when it’s your birthday and you think, “I can literally do what I want because it’s my birthday, everyone has to do what I want.” The chorus kind of came easy because I was just thinking of things that I want to do on my birthday and I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. So that was the first easy bit of the chorus. And when it came to the verses, it was kind of hard to think of what am I actually going to talk about because I’ve said everything in the chorus. So I felt like we had to bring in another person into it, to have a little bit extra to the story because otherwise I was just going to be like, “Yeah, it’s my birthday, I’m another year older. Going to celebrate with my friends.” It’s not much grit. So I ended up bringing in the ex-boyfriend and being like, “I don’t even care about you today, let alone anything else.” He kind of made the subject a little easier to arrive at. He always does.

The music video for “Birthday” was released on the same day as the track on Anne-Marie’s official YouTube channel. Directed by Hannah Lux Davis, the video features Anne-Marie in a large pink mansion with pink furnishing and clothes, eating extravagant food and dancing around in a pink ballgown. At the end of the video, Anne-Marie’s friends surprise her in her bedroom with a cake. In a little over a month, the video has gathered 15.8 million views with well over 538 thousand likes.

Release Date: 7th February 2020

Songwriter/s: Anne-Marie Nicholson, Delacey, Keith Sorrells & Warren Felder

Producer: Oak

Label: Asylum

Music Video Release Date: 7th February 2020

Music Video Director: Hannah Lux Davis

Chart Rankings: “Birthday” hit the charts in many places, reaching #47 and #9 in different charts in Belgium, #57 in the Czech Republic, #43 in Ireland, #60 in Lithuania, #13 and #19 in various charts in the Netherlands; #8 in New Zealand, #22 in Scotland, #97 in Slovakia, #38 in South Korea, #1 in Sweden and #36 in the UK.

The lyrics to “Birthday” can be accessed here: LINK