They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with other people singing his or her songs. Let others do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

If anybody deserves to be described as “X years young,” it’s Jonathan Richman, who’s been in this world for 61 years as of today. Robert Christgau famously called him “an almost powerless case of arrested development,” but that was before he wrote songs like “The Girl Stands Up To Me Now,” “Let Her Go Into The Darkness,” and “That Summer Feeling,” all of which have true maturity without ever giving up Richman’s trademark unaffected wide-eyed stance. Long after he made an undeniable impact on the rock world with the Modern Lovers, Richman’s become an acoustic troubadour, criss-crossing the country with his musical tales, and has won a fervid following doing so – when he appeared as the Greek chorus of There’s Something About Mary, his fans didn’t think of him as selling out, but congratulated the world on buying in. His is truly a birthday worth celebrating – we’re doing so with the following covers… Continue reading »