“Happy Birthday” sung off-key by people who love you is better than any performance. Someday you’ll miss the bad singing.

Bad singing is the proof. A room of people who cannot hold a tune doing it anyway because it is your birthday is a group choosing to look slightly ridiculous on your behalf, and that willingness is the whole content of the song. A good performance would mean less. The wobble is the affection.

Let people do it rather than waving it off, even when the attention is uncomfortable. If you can, record thirty seconds of the next one on your phone. Being sung to badly is the kind of ordinary thing that turns out to be worth having on file.