Happy Birthday is one of the most popular songs written in the English Language, all of us love the tune, and love to sing it.
But have we ever questioned its
origin? Where has the song come from? Who wrote it? Well I will answer these
questions but firstly let me jot down some surprising facts about the song ‘Happy
Birthday to you’.
-It was composed around 1890s.
-The song is currently owned by an American music
publishing company.
-Yes it is copyrighted.
-The patent for the song exchanged hands in late
1990s for around $5 Million.
I have to admit that the first
time I came across these facts; so
now let’s have a look at the origins of the song.
If we look at a song called ‘Good
Morning to All’ below, you will notice a considerable similarity between this
song and ‘Happy Birthday to You’.
"Good Morning to All"
Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.
‘Good Morning to All’ was written
by two sisters, Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893. Patty being a
kindergarten principal in Louisville, Kentucky, the sisters composed this song
for young children to sing. It was included in a book called ‘Song Stories for
the Kindergarten’ by Patty Hill.
Now the facts regarding who
replaced the words with ‘Happy Birthday to You’ into the Hill sisters melody
are a bit unclear. It is said that the children loved the song so much; they
started singing it at birthday parties altering the lyrics to include the happy
birthday theme. In 1924, Robert Coleman included the song ‘Good Morning to All’
with a second verse being ‘‘Happy Birthday to You’’ in a song book. It was also
published in 1933 by Coleman in The American Hymnal.
In 1935 ‘Happy Birthday to You’
was first copyrighted by the Summy Company, the publisher of ‘Good Morning to
all’, working with Jessica Hill, the third sibling of the Hill sisters.
The Summy Company was later
purchased by an accountant named John F. Sengstack, who later renamed the
company to Birch Tree Ltd.
Now in the resent past the rights
to ‘Happy Birthday to You’ and the Birch
Tree company were sold to the Time-Warner Corporation for around $25 million,
valuing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ at around $5 million. Now it is said that
royalty collected for ‘Happy Birthday to You’ in 2008 alone was almost $2
million, that’s $5000+ a day.
The royalties are shared between
the Time-Warner Corporation and the successor of the original authors.
Now you will question who
actually pays to perform ‘Happy Birthday to You’. Does it mean that you have to
pay up every time this song is performed? No, royalties are due only for
commercial use such as in movies, television shows, radio, as well as when the
song is incorporated in musical greeting cards.
So some interesting points you
will notice, movies or TV shows always end up not singing the Happy Birthday
song , since a legal challenge would cost a great deal more than the $10,000
licensing fee, most filmmakers just pay Time-Warner or continue without the song or have their characters sing
things like, ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow.’
But one interesting point, Batman Begins has the entire song performed, but again it is a Warner Bros movie. You will notice it as one of the non-included tracks in the movie Soundtrack.
So just be aware the next time you sing a song, there is always an interesting tale just don’t end up unhappy when you have to pay for it.
Always while researching a
topic we come across some very pleasant surprises. Here is one I came across.
It’s a video of classical variations of Happy Birthday conducted by Zubin
Mehta. Now I am not sure if he paid Warner or not for performing the song, but
frankly I really don’t care. The performance on the other hand is stunning.
Please enjoy.
