I recently mortified an undergraduate by having the entire class sing her “Happy Birthday.” The reward? They all could leave class early. I didn’t anticipate, however, how horrific we would all sound. The guy with the lowest voice starting us off didn’t help any. Really. It was awful.

It’s pretty hilarious how poor it can sound when a bunch of us try and sing Happy Birthday to one another. The more the merrier at the party, but don’t count on the serenade to sound so hot.

Have you seen, though, the American Cancer Society’s campaign built around the idea of giving people more birthdays? Their tagline right now is, “The Official Sponsor of Birthdays.” There are several videos available with famous folks singing the Happy Birthday song (ranging from Deborah Harry to Justin Bieber or Weezer to Incubus).

Here’s a particularly soulful version from Jennifer Hudson. Yeah, when I sing in someone’s voicemail, I sound just like this!