Make a custom song with their name, sung in your language

The nickname, the habit, the dog: what the lyrics need

A song generator is only as personal as what you give it. "Happy birthday, you're the best" gives the model nothing it couldn't sing to anyone. Give the agent three or four things only your people would recognise: a nickname, a habit, a running joke, a place. Listen to "One Year Taller" above - paper hats, Grandpa clapping out of time, a height mark by the kitchen door. None of it is clever; all of it is specific.

Put the name where it repeats. The chorus comes back again and again, so a name in the chorus is the line they remember. Use the form the family says out loud, not the one on the passport: at home a Valentina is Valya or Babulya, a grandmother in Tel Aviv is Savta Rivka, one in Beirut is Teta. If a name is often misread, spell it in the lyrics the way it is said. Keep lines short and close in length - a line that sings is usually one you can say in a single breath.

Keep the lyrics in proportion to the song. A short one is about a verse and a chorus - room for three details and one name. Lyrics that run longer are cut at the last full line that fits, so put what matters first.

The birthday song the family already sings

Many families have a birthday song of their own, and often it is not the English one. In Russian-speaking homes it is Crocodile Gena's song from the Cheburashka cartoon, Israeli kindergartens sing "Hayom yom huledet", and across much of the Arab world people clap along to "Sana helwa ya gamil". The person you are making the song for often speaks the family language best and English least - a grandmother in Haifa, a grandfather in Samara - and a song they can follow word for word is a different gift from one they politely nod along to.

The language of the song follows the language of the lyrics, not of your chat: write them in Hebrew and Lyria 3.5 sings in Hebrew, write them in Arabic and it sings in Arabic. Lines grow in translation, since a Russian line often needs more syllables than the English one it replaced, so if a line needs a breath in the middle, cut a word. Hebrew and Arabic are usually written without vowel marks, and a name that can be read two ways deserves an extra listen. Arabic needs one more decision: our Arabic birthday song is in Modern Standard Arabic, which sounds a little formal, closer to a speech than to a kitchen. For the family's dialect, ask for it by name and have someone who grew up with it check the lyrics.

One song, one alphabet

Plenty of families do: the grandchildren answer in English while Grandma asks in Russian. It is tempting to ask for one song that switches halfway, but each song is sung in one language, which we read from the alphabet of the lyrics, and a single Hebrew word inside an English song changes that for the whole song. A verse in a second alphabet is the part most likely to come out wrong, and all twenty songs with words in our catalogue stick to one language.

Three things work better. Sing in the language of the person the song is for and send a short text greeting in the other; text is free. Borrow one phrase written in the song's own alphabet, the way the family already drops "Savta", "mazal tov" or "habibti" into English. Or make two short songs, one for Grandma in Russian and one for the cousins in English. If you still want to mix, pick a short song and listen to every line before sending.

Pop at four, folk at seventy: genre by age

A four-year-old wants his name and a beat to jump to; an eighty-year-old wants to catch every word. Up to about five, try Children or Pop, funny or happy, fast and short, with the name in every chorus and the dog, the cake and the paper hat in the verse. From six to twelve, Pop, Children or Latin with this year's obsession: dinosaurs, football, slime. For teens, Hip-Hop, Pop or Rock, one inside joke and no baby photos - and send it to them, not to the family group. From twenty to forty-something, Pop, RnB/Soul or Rock with a story from this year, such as the new flat or the half marathon they swore off. In the fifties and sixties, Folk, Jazz or Country at a medium tempo, a long song with where they met and the children's names. From seventy, Folk or Pop, slow to medium, in the language of their childhood, with the grandchildren by name.

Treat that as a place to start: a grandfather who played in a rock band at twenty may still want rock at eighty. Instruments carry a language too - our Arabic birthday song is built on oud and drums, and a Russian folk song wants an accordion. Or choose by ear: the catalogue has 40 songs made with Lyria 3.5, twenty with words in our four languages and twenty melodies, plus 40 sounds for laying under a video. When one sounds right, press "One like this about my person": the composer opens on Song with the same genre and mood, and you only add who it is for. The three songs above - an acoustic pop toast, a slow soul wedding song on piano and strings, a funny children's song with bells - come from that catalogue.

Songs for stories, texts for two lines

A song earns its place when there is a story to tell and it will be played more than once: a child's party, a first dance, a parent's 70th. For a two-line message, a text greeting is free and does the job.

Be clear about whose voice you want to hear. Lyria 3.5 sings with a voice it makes; it does not sing in yours. For spoken words, a voice greeting reads your text in one of eight ElevenLabs Eleven v3 voices, or in your own voice with MiniMax Speech on paid plans. For Grandma to speak the words herself from her photo, there is the talking photo card: Kling AI Avatar v2 moves the face and head with the words, OmniHuman 1.5 moves the whole person.

And if you picture the whole family singing round the cake as Mum blows out the candles, that is a video moment, not a song: Veo 3.1 makes the singing together with the picture. Songs and sounds from our catalogue can also be laid under a video greeting.