quote unquote
It's about the decay of life. Enjoy the time you have, because all the great stuff that's happened in the last year means you're also one year closer to death.
It was originally a Norse drinking song that translated as "99 Bottled Years on the Wall" and the other line was "When one of those years to the ground does fall," meaning when another year is done. It was sung every year on your birthday, as many choruses as years you had lived, to remind you how many you had left (99 years was a ridiculous overestimate of the typical life span, but the Norse were an arrogant people).
It's about the decay of life. Enjoy the time you have, because all the great stuff that's happened in the last year means you're also one year closer to death.
It was originally a Norse drinking song that translated as "99 Bottled Years on the Wall" and the other line was "When one of those years to the ground does fall," meaning when another year is done. It was sung every year on your birthday, as many choruses as years you had lived, to remind you how many you had left (99 years was a ridiculous overestimate of the typical life span, but the Norse were an arrogant people).