It's Not My Birthday: a Song About Time, Dread, and. . . Comfort?
Why this They Might Be Giants song is perfect for anyone feeling the weight of their own existence.
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Why This Song Sticks
Imagine every day, thinking about how every thought you have is using up the time you have left to think. That’s my reality, thanks in no small part to They Might Be Giants and their song “It’s Not My Birthday.” This seventh track from their B-sides compilation Miscellaneous T has been a near-daily soundtrack in my head, its lyrics surfacing whenever I pause to reflect on time, existence, or the fact that rain falls regardless of my feelings about it.
Every time I hear the rain, think about my birthday, or, well, think about thinking (which is an alarming amount—my other newsletter is called The Art and Anxiety of Overthinking for a reason), this song is right there.
The Dread It Plants (Or Why My Son is Kinda Mad at Me)
A few months ago, my oldest son—now 25—confessed that certain TMBG songs filled him with a vague sense of dread when he was growing up. He wanted to know why I’d let him listen to these as a kid, and honestly? Fair question. I had to admit that I might have subjected him to some existentially loaded stuff a bit early.
One of those songs is “Older,” which we’ll tackle in depth in another post. The other was “It’s Not My Birthday,” specifically the line:
"As I walk, I'm thinking about a new way to walk
As I think, I'm using up the time left to think."
“Using up the time left to think”—yeah, that’s pretty heavy. He told me that line haunted him through his teenage years. I don’t want to claim these songs caused his anxiety, but they also didn’t not cause it.
When I first heard this lyric as a teenager myself, I was already a textbook overthinker, teetering on the edge of existential dread with a brain wired for obsessive loops. This line slotted perfectly into my own already overthinking mind with a certain flavor of neurodivergence. It is haunting and yet somehow comforting. “It’s Not My Birthday” was this deceptively simple, beautifully crafted piece of music that aligned a little too well with my angsty outlook on life.
The World Crumbles Like Cake
Let’s give it a listen, shall we? Click the video player below:
It goes without saying that I never skip this song when it comes on. Like most TMBG songs, I suspect I’ve layered it with more meaning than they may have intended, but that's the beauty of music, right? You bring your own baggage to it. Let me share a bit of what “It’s Not My Birthday” has meant to me.
The song begins with a declaration that it’s raining, lawns are getting wet, and everything is just as mundanely bleak as ever. But our narrator sounds almost resentful, as if nature itself is out to spite him. He sees the planet as a “grey” (boring) thing and hopes that after it crumbles to nothing like cake, he’ll never have to deal with it again.
When I was a teenager, struggling with depression and a constant feeling of emptiness, I related to that so much. Even after becoming an adult, the world often felt overwhelmingly dull, to the point where being noticed or celebrated by others—on my birthday or any day—felt deeply uncomfortable. When someone paid attention to me, it conflicted with my own sense of insignificance. Why are you making a fuss? It’s not like it’s my birthday.
A Train Trying to Go Off the Track
There’s a line in the song where the singer compares himself to a train rolling off the track, trying to go where it isn’t invited. That’s such a perfect metaphor for feeling out of place, like you don’t belong anywhere. Instead, he’s confined to self-imposed isolation—a “drink tank,” as he calls it, maybe suggesting that alcohol helps numb his existential ache.
He longs to pour himself through the keyhole or evaporating altogether. That always struck me as a yearning to disappear. He realizes though that to slip away so completely that there’d be no trace, no “percentage” or “proof” that he was ever here at all. It’s a bleak thought: to want to vanish without anyone noticing, as if to say, “The world is collapsing in on itself, I’m barely holding it together, and everyone else is just... fine. Happy non-birthday to me.”
Comfort in a Keyhole
Strangely, though, none of this dread-laced meaning I’ve extracted from the song makes me feel sad. Quite the opposite. I actually find comfort in it. Listening to this song makes me feel understood—like I’m not alone in my bleak outlook.
I am, objectively speaking, not alone in life. I have friends, family, and a wife. Yet I feel this unshakable loneliness, a sort of low-grade despair humming in the background most days. I’ve come to accept it as part of who I am. And when I listen to “It’s Not My Birthday,” I smile. There’s something affirming about hearing these dark thoughts in song form. It's as if TMBG is saying, “Yeah, life is weird and heavy and sometimes absurdly bleak. But hey, you’re not the only one feeling this way.”
So, happy non-birthday to me—and if you feel a little less alone hearing this song, happy non-birthday to you too.
Have you ever had a song haunt your thoughts for years? Share your existential anthem in the comments below.
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I loved this post. I’ll take your request that people share their experiences seriously and offer mine, but it is very similar to your interpretation. I used to walk around my neighborhood as a kid as a way to listen to music without being bothered, and even hearing this song in my head evokes a heavy nostalgic sadness for me. It’s a nostalgia for something I never had. I grew up between two households - my parents had been married for years and had several miscarriages, I somehow made it during the very last try. My dad was already seeing my future stepmother on the side when I was conceived. So while they divorced after I was born, I have no memory of them being together, the only thing I remember is their divorce in real-time and of course I had none of this info at any point in my childhood. This song always made me think of the fact that I was forced to have two “birthdays” every year, two “Christmases”, because my parents couldn’t even make peace to both celebrate my birthday with me at the same time. I had to pretend it was my birthday once a year when it wasn’t, I only had one real actual birthday. It honestly fascinates me to consider what my reaction to this song would have been otherwise. Thanks for this post and sorry if this seems like a trauma dump — I’m good, don’t worry lol — but you actually caused me to stop and realize that’s why this song has always had such aa deep resonance with me