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Happy Birthday to You

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For similarly titled songs, see Happy Birthday (disambiguation). For other birthday songs see List of birthday songs.

"Happy Birthday to You", also known more simply as "Happy Birthday", is a traditional song that is sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person's birth. According to the 1998 Guinness Book of World Records, "Happy Birthday to You" is the most well recognized song in the English language, followed by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and "Auld Lang Syne".[1] The song's base lyrics have been translated into at least 18 languages.[2]

The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" comes from the song "Good Morning to All", which was written and composed by American sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893.[3] They were both kindergarten school teachers in Louisville, Kentucky, developing various teaching methods at what is now the Little Loomhouse.[4][5] The sisters created "Good Morning to All" as a song that would be easy to sing by young children[6]. The combination of melody and lyrics in "Happy Birthday to You" first appeared in print in 1912, and probably existed even earlier.[7] None of these early appearances included credits or copyright notices. The Summy Company registered for copyright in 1935, crediting authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman. In 1990, Warner Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for US$15 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at US$5 million.[8] Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims that U.S. copyright won't expire until 2030, and that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to it.

In European Union (EU) countries the copyright in the song will expire December 31, 2016.

The actual U.S. copyright status of "Happy Birthday to You" began to draw more attention with the passage of the Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft in 2003, Judge Breyer specifically mentioned "Happy Birthday to You" in his dissenting opinion.[9] Professor Robert Brauneis went so far as to conclude "It is doubtful that 'Happy Birthday to You', the famous offspring of 'Good Morning to All', is really still under copyright", in his heavily researched 2008 paper.[10]

Lyrics

"Good Morning to All"

Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.

(Lyrics by Patty Smith Hill.[11])

History of the song

The public domain song Good-Morning to All
Song Good-Morning to All. 22sec.

The origins of "Happy Birthday To You" date back to the mid-nineteenth century, when two sisters, Patty and Mildred J. Hill, began singing the song "Good Morning To All" to their kindergarten class in Kentucky. In 1893, they published the tune in their songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten. However, many believe that the Hill sisters most likely copied the tune and lyrical idea from other songs from that time period.[12] There were a number of popular and substantially similar nineteenth-century songs that predated the Hill sisters' composition, including Horace Waters' "Happy Greetings to All"; "Good Night to You All", also from 1858; "A Happy New Year to All", from 1875; and "A Happy Greeting to All", published 1885.[12] The copyright for both the words and the music of "Good Morning to All" has since expired and both are now a part of the public domain.

The Hill Sisters' students enjoyed their teachers' version of "Good Morning To All" so much that they began spontaneously singing it at birthday parties, changing the lyrics to "Happy Birthday".[12] In 1924, Robert Coleman included "Good Morning to All" in a songbook with the birthday lyrics as a second verse. Coleman also published "Happy Birthday" in The American Hymnal in 1933. Children's Praise and Worship, edited by Andrew Byers, Bessie L. Byrum and Anna E. Koglin, published the song in 1928.

In 1935 "Happy Birthday to You" was copyrighted as a work for hire by Preston Ware Orem for the Summy Company, the publisher of "Good Morning to All". A new company, Birch Tree Group Limited, was formed to protect and enforce the song's copyright. In 1998[13], the rights to "Happy Birthday to You" and its assets were sold to The Time-Warner Corporation. In March 2004, Warner Music Group was sold to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. The company continues to insist that one cannot sing the "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics for profit without paying extremely high royalties (by some accounts, upwards of $10,000 for a single use in a film or television program [citation needed]). This includes use in film, television, radio, anywhere open to the public, or even among a group where a substantial number of those in attendance are not family or friend to whoever is performing the song.

Except for the splitting of the first note in the melody "Good Morning to All" to accommodate the two syllables in the word "happy", "Happy Birthday to You" and "Good Morning to All" are melodically identical. Precedent (regarding works derived from public domain material, and cases comparing two similar musical works [citation needed]) seems to suggest that the melody used in "Happy Birthday to You" would not merit additional copyright status for one split note. Whether or not changing the words "good morning" to "happy birthday" should be covered by copyright is a different matter. The words "good morning" were replaced with "happy birthday" by others than the authors of "Good Morning to All". Regardless of the fact that "Happy Birthday to You" infringed upon Good Morning to All, there is one theory that because the "Happy Birthday to You" variation was not authored by the Hills, and it was published without notice of copyright under the 1909 U. S. copyright act, that the 1935 registration is invalid.

Many question the validity of the current copyright, as the melody of the song was most likely borrowed from other popular songs of the time, and the lyrics were improvised by a group of five and six-year-old children who never received any compensation.[12] The song is currently set to pass in to the public domain in 2030.

Royalty amounts sought

The documentary film The Corporation claims that Warner/Chappell charges up to US$10,000 for the song to appear in a film.

[[in 2005 for copyright clearances [14] have allowed PBS to rebroadcast the film as recently as February 2008. [15]






the happy birthday lyrics

happy brithday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear ____ happyyyyyyyyy birrrrrthdayyyy toooooooo youuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Notable instances of the song in public

One of the most famous performances of "Happy Birthday to You" was Marilyn Monroe's rendition to U.S. President John F. Kennedy in May 1962.

The song was also sung by the crew of Apollo 9 on March 8, 1969.

Many restaurants have original, modern, corporate-developed songs that are used instead of the old-fashioned "Happy Birthday to You" when serving patrons the traditional cake on their birthdays. Originally, these songs were specifically developed to prevent copyright infringement and having to pay royalties. In Mike Jittlov's 1989 film The Wizard of Speed and Time, Jittlov avoided all copyright and royalty problems by using a replacement song, "Merry Birthday to You", which he wrote himself.

Due to the copyright issue, filmmakers rarely show complete singalongs of "Happy Birthday" in films, either substituting the public-domain "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" or avoiding the song entirely. Before the song was copyrighted it was used freely, as in Bosko's Party, a Warner Brothers cartoon of 1932, where a chorus of animals sing it twice through.

One of the popular audience lines in The Rocky Horror Picture Show alludes to this. After Dr. Frank N. Furter has captured Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott, he hosts a dinner for them. At the beginning of an apparent birthday celebration, the audience calls out "Start to sing 'Happy Birthday' but don't finish it", and indeed, Dr. Furter cuts it short midway through the song.

The David Gilmour DVD Remember That Night has a scene in the documentary where the band and crew celebrate Richard Wright's birthday, and the song is muted, and a message informing viewers to sing it themselves is shown.

The Beatles' Christmas Album had John Lennon singing an impromptu parody on the 1963 greeting.

Oliver Stone's 1987 Wall Street was one of the rare films that played enough of the song to justify a royalty payment. Bud's computer plays the melody early in the film to remind him it's Gordon Gekko's birthday, and the song is included in the music credits at the end of the film.

In 1955, Igor Stravinsky arranged a variation of the song, called Greeting Prelude, to commemorate the 80th birthday of Pierre Monteux. The Russian-born composer wrote that he had been introduced to the tune only five years earlier, when members of an orchestra with whom he was rehearsing, to his bafflement at the time, played the tune in honor of a recent birth among the orchestra members.

Clergy sing Happy Birthday to Pope Benedictus XVI at the White House on April 16, 2008, his 81st birthday.

On the January 9, 2008 Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, during the "It's Email Time Again" section of the show where host Craig Ferguson answers viewers' emails, one viewer told Craig it was her birthday and asked if he would sing her "Happy Birthday". Ferguson went on to explain that every time the song was sung on TV you had to pay a royalty to the copyright holder and it would cost money to wish her happy birthday, then sang the complete song with the line "take that CBS" in place where one's name would go.

Thousands of spectators sang happy birthday to Pope Benedict XVI at the White House on April 16, 2008, his 81st birthday. [16]

On June 27, 2008, hundreds of people in London's Hyde Park sang the song to Nelson Mandela on the occasion of his 90th birthday.[17]

Following his 200 m gold medal performance at the 2008 Summer Olympics, the crowd at Beijing National Stadium sereneded Usain Bolt with "Happy Birthday", as his birthday began at midnight that night.

To wish his mother a happy birthday, Stephen Colbert had the audience of the Colbert Report sing "Happy Birthday". However, he claimed, since he was raised a good Catholic, the song was sung in Latin.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ The Guinness Book of World Records 1998, p. 180
  2. ^ Brauneis, Robert (2008-03-21), Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song, p. 17, retrieved 2008-05-08
  3. ^ Originally published in Song Stories for the Kindergarten (Chicago: Clayton E. Summy Co., 1896), as cited by Snyder, Agnes. Dauntless Women in Childhood Education, 1856-1931. 1972. Washington, D.C.: Association for Childhood Education International. p. 244.
  4. ^ Brauneis, Robert (2008-03-21), Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song, pp. 4–15, retrieved 2008-05-08
  5. ^ KET - History: Little Loomhouse
  6. ^ Brauneis, Robert (2008-03-21), Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song, p. 14, retrieved 2008-05-08
  7. ^ Brauneis, Robert (2008-03-21), Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song, pp. 31–32, retrieved 2008-05-08
  8. ^ Uncorking that Joyful Noise
  9. ^ 537 US 186, Justice Stevens, dissenting, II, C
  10. ^ Brauneis, Robert (2008-03-21), Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song, retrieved 2008-05-08
  11. ^ "Good morning". Time. 1934. Retrieved 22 March 2009. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |day= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  12. ^ a b c d Barger, Tom. "Except from Freedom of Expression (R): Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity". Boycott-RIAA. Retrieved 2008-05-24. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  13. ^ http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-licensing5.htm
  14. ^ Dean, Katie (2005-08-30). "Cash Rescues Eyes on the Prize". wired.com. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
  15. ^ "PBS News: PBS Celebrates Black History Month with an Extensive Lineup of Special Programming". PBS. 2008-01-10. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
  16. ^ Ewen MacAskill (April 16, 2008). "Thousands gather to greet Pope at White House". {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |pub= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (June 28, 2008). "Mandela joins stars at London gig". {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |pub= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ http://www.hulu.com/watch/43147/the-colbert-report-thu-nov-6-2008

Canadian Intellectual Property Office: http://www.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/cp/copy_gd_protect-e.html#11

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