A Custom Birthday Song for Your Sister

You are the only other person who was in that house. You both know which stair creaked, which cabinet the snacks got hidden in, and the exact tone your mother used when she was done asking nicely. Nobody else at her birthday has that. You do.

That is the material for this song, and it is why a card gets nowhere near it. Write down the things only the two of you witnessed. The bedroom you split with a line of masking tape down the carpet. The summer she took the blame for something you did. The nickname she gave you at nine that somehow still gets used at Thanksgiving. Three or four details like that are plenty.

You also saw a version of your parents that nobody else in her life ever saw, and half of what makes the two of you close is that neither one has to explain it. A song can say that out loud in a way a conversation across the table never will.

You do not have to be a writer. Most people send a messy paragraph with half of it in parentheses, and that works fine. The part people actually get stuck on is music, because nobody in your family has agreed on a song since the car rides. Ignore the family vote. Tell us what she puts on when she is driving by herself, and we build it in that lane.

If her birthday is Saturday, you are still fine. This is an original song, written from your details, recorded studio-quality, $19.99, sent to your email within 24 hours.

Start with one memory only the two of you have. Type it into the order form the way you would tell it to her on the phone, and we write the song around it.