Custom songs by occasion
A custom birthday song for the milestone ones
Thirtieth, fiftieth, seventieth, eightieth. The birthdays where a candle and a card do not quite cover it. From $24.99.
There is a specific problem with a seventieth birthday: the person has everything they need and does not want any of it. Another candle joins the drawer of candles. A voucher gets spent on the weekly shop. Nothing in a box says anything about them.
A song does. It uses their name, their sayings, the story the family retells every Christmas, and it gets played out loud in a room full of people who all know exactly what it is referring to. That is a different kind of present, and it is the reason milestone birthdays are the most popular thing we write.
What to put in a birthday brief
The best birthday songs are built from the small stuff. Not achievements, habits.
The thing they always say
Every family has one. The greeting, the catchphrase, the way they answer the phone. This is usually the hook of the whole song.
A habit everyone teases them about
Three sugars and denying it at the doctor. Up at half five because the day is wasted otherwise. This is where the laughs come from.
One story the family retells
The holiday that went wrong, the driving lesson, the year they did the thing nobody can believe. Give us the details, including the boring ones.
Something they did quietly for someone
The bit that makes people cry. Raising three of you alone, the six hour drive at short notice, the money nobody was supposed to know about.
Which genre tends to work
Piano ballad
The one that makes the room go quiet. Best for seventieth and eightieth birthdays.
Soul
Warm and big-hearted, with a chorus a whole party can join in on.
Pop
Bright and modern. The obvious pick for a thirtieth or a fortieth.
Country
Storytelling with a twang. Perfect when the life has a lot of chapters.
How people actually use it
Most play it at the party, usually after the food and before anyone is too far gone to pay attention. Someone connects a phone to a speaker, the room quiets down, and the first verse does the work.
Others send it privately in the morning so the person has it to themselves first. Both work. The one thing worth doing either way is having a camera ready, because the reaction is the other half of the gift.
Why it works better than the usual gift
A song built from your own memories could not belong to anyone else. It is not a category of present, it is a one-off object with their name in it.
It also survives. Flowers die by Friday and candles join the drawer, but people keep playing this. Most of the reaction videos we get sent are of someone hearing it for the second or third time.
When to order
Give yourself a couple of days if the party is planned, because you will want to play it to one other person first and watch their face before you commit to playing it to everyone.
For a birthday you forgot until this morning, Express delivery is one hour. The form takes about ten minutes to fill in.
Questions
What if I am not good with words?
That is the normal case. The questions are simple: how you know them, what they always say, one story worth telling. Plain sentences work best. We do the writing.
Can the whole family contribute details?
Yes, and the songs are better for it. Collect a few lines from everyone in a group chat first, then paste the best bits into the story question.
How long is the finished song?
Two to three minutes, with verses, a chorus and a full arrangement. Long enough to be a real song and short enough to hold a room.
Can I choose a male or female singer?
Yes. You pick the voice and the genre in the form, or leave it to us if you would rather we matched it to the story.
Ready when you are
About ten minutes of questions. A finished song in as little as an hour, from $24.99, yours to keep forever.
Start their song