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Happy Birthday to You

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Revision as of 19:44, 2 May 2016 by 216.109.2.122 (talk) (→Copyright status)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) This article is about the song. For the book, see Happy Birthday to You! "Happy Birthday (song)" redirects here. For other songs by that name, see Happy Birthday § Songs.

Song
"Happy Birthday to You"
Song

"Happy Birthday to You", also known more simply as "Happy Birthday", is a song that is traditionally sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person's birth. According to the 1998 Guinness World Records, "Happy Birthday to You" is the most recognized song in the English language, followed by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". The song's base lyrics have been translated into at least 18 languages. The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" comes from the song "Good Morning to All", which has been attributed to American sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill in 1893, although the claim that the sisters composed the tune is disputed.

Patty Hill was a kindergarten principal in Louisville, Kentucky, developing various teaching methods at what is now the Little Loomhouse; her sister Mildred was a pianist and composer. The sisters used "Good Morning to All" as a song that young children would find easy to sing. The combination of melody and lyrics in "Happy Birthday to You" first appeared in print in 1912, and probably existed even earlier.

None of the early appearances of the "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics included credits or copyright notices. The Summy Company registered a copyright in 1935, crediting authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R. R. Forman. In 1988, Warner/Chappell Music purchased the company owning the copyright for US$25 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at US$5 million. Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claimed that the United States copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to Warner. In one specific instance in February 2010, these royalties were said to amount to US$700. By one estimate, the song is the highest-earning single song in history, with estimated earnings since its creation of US$50 million. In the European Union, the copyright of the song was set to expire no later than December 31, 2016.

The American copyright status of "Happy Birthday to You" began to draw more attention with the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft in 2003, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer specifically mentioned "Happy Birthday to You" in his dissenting opinion. American law professor Robert Brauneis, who extensively researched the song, concluded in 2010 that "It is almost certainly no longer under copyright." In 2013, based in large part on Brauneis's research, Good Morning to You Productions, a company producing a documentary about "Good Morning to All", sued Warner/Chappell for falsely claiming copyright to the song. In September 2015, a federal judge declared that the Warner/Chappell copyright claim was invalid, ruling that the copyright registration applied only to a specific piano arrangement of the song, and not to its lyrics and melody. In February 2016 Warner/Chappell settled for US $14 million and sent the song into the public domain.

Lyrics

"Happy birthday to you"

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear John,
Happy birthday to you.

Lyrics with the melody

\relative c' { \key f \major \time 3/4 \partial 4 c8. c16 | d4 c f | e2 c8. c16 | d4 c g' | f2 c8. c16 | c'4 a f | e( d) bes'8. bes16 | a4 f g | f2 \bar "|." } \addlyrics { Hap -- py birth -- day to you, Hap -- py birth -- day to you, Hap -- py birth -- day dear John, __ Hap -- py birth -- day to you. }

Traditions

It is traditional, among English-speakers, that at a birthday party, the song "Happy Birthday to You" be sung to the birthday person by the other guests celebrating the birthday. More specifically, the birthday person is traditionally presented with a birthday cake with lit candles, with the number of candles sometimes corresponding to the age of the person. After the song is sung (usually just once), party guests sometimes add wishes like "and many more!" expressing the hope that the birthday person will enjoy a long life. The birthday person may be asked to make a wish ("Make a wish!")—which he or she does silently—and then is supposed to blow out the candles. Traditionally, blowing out of the candles is believed (or is considered a lighthearted superstition) to ensure that the wish will come true. Once the candles have been blown out, people may applaud, after which the cake may be served, often with the first piece being served to the person whose birthday it is.

In Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Ireland, immediately after "Happy Birthday" has been sung, it is traditional for one of the guests to enthusiastically lead with "Hip hip..." and then for all of the other guests to join in and say "... hooray!" This is normally repeated three times. In Canada, especially at young children's birthdays, immediately after "Happy Birthday" has been sung, the singers segue into "How old are you now? How old are you now? How old are you now-ow, how old are you now?" and then count up: "Are you one? Are you two? Are you..." until they reach the right age, at which the celebrant says "yes", and everybody else, who presumably know the right number, all cheer.

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Public performances

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. Another notable use was by comedy pianist Victor Borge, who played the song in styles of various composers, or would begin playing Moonlight Sonata, smoothly transitioning into the song.

The documentary film The Corporation states that Warner/Chappell charged up to US$10,000 for the song to appear in a film. Because of the copyright issue, filmmakers rarely showed 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 Bros. cartoon of 1932, where a chorus of animals sings it twice through. The copyright status of "Happy Birthday to You" is directly referenced in a 2009 episode of the TV series iCarly, "iMake Sam Girlier", in which the main character as well as others begin to sing the song to Sam but are prevented from doing so by Freddie, who says the song isn't public domain; "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow" is then sung instead.

In a 1998 episode of the television show Sports Night, "Intellectual Property", character Dan Rydell sings the song to his co-anchor during a telecast, forcing his network to pay royalties, and causing him to ask his colleagues to choose public-domain songs for him to sing for their birthdays. The copyright is also referenced frequently in a Disney A.N.T. Farm episode where characters repeatedly try to sing the song, only to be stopped by others reminding them of the price. The melody of the song is also featured in The Wrong Trousers but was replaced with "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" for DVD releases. The use of the song is a problem even if it is sung in a made up language, as a Klingon-language version was nixed in pre-production from the 7th season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Parallels", replaced with "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" in Klingon. In the Futurama episode "I Second That Emotion", they poke fun at the song and its copyright by making their own version with the lyrics "What day is today? / It's (birthday person)'s birthday / What a day for a birthday / Let's all have some cake."

In the 30 Rock episode "Goodbye, My Friend", TGS cast members begin to sing the song following an announcement about the royalty fee for singing "Happy Birthday to You" on a television show. The cast is interrupted after the first line by a character entering the scene. In the Community episode "Mixology Certification", a scene starts with the last two words of the song ("... to you"), implying it had been sung in its entirety, before Pierce confusedly asks, "How come we only sang the last two words?"

In the 1987 documentary Eyes on the Prize about the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, there was a birthday party scene in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s discouragement began to lift. After its initial release, the film was unavailable for sale or broadcast for many years because of the cost of clearing many copyrights, of which "Happy Birthday to You" was one. Grants in 2005 for copyright clearances allowed PBS to rebroadcast the film as recently as February 2008.

In 2010, the Western Classical music conductor Zubin Mehta conducted the orchestra to play variations of Happy Birthday in the styles of various Western classical music composers including Wagner, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and in the composition styles of the Viennese, New Orleans and Hungarian composition styles.

On August 5, 2013, the first anniversary of its landing on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover celebrated its "birthday" when engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center used the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument to cause the rover to "sing" Happy Birthday on the Martian surface.

During the March 6, 2014 episode of the Comedy Central series The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert planned to sing the song in honor of the 90th anniversary of its 1924 publication, but was "forced" to sing a new "royalty-free" version—with lyrics set to "The Star-Spangled Banner", instead, due to the copyright issues.

The Regular Show episode "Happy Birthday Song Contest", features the character named "Happy Birthday", who sang the entire song on this episode.

During the November 6, 2015, episode of the CBS series Blue Bloods, "The Bullitt Mustang", the Reagan family starts to sing "Happy Birthday" to Erin Reagan (Bridget Moynahan), but they are stopped by Henry Reagan (Len Cariou).

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. Brauneis (2010), p. 17.
  2. Hill;, Mildred J. (music); Hill, Patty S. (lyrics) (1896). "Good Morning to All". Song Stories for the Kindergarten. Illustrations by Margaret Byers; With an introduction by Anna E. Bryan (New, Revised, Illustrated and Enlarged ed.). Chicago: Clayton F. Summy Co. p. 3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. Collins, Paul (July 21, 2011). "You Say It's Your Birthday. Does the Infamous 'Happy Birthday to You' Copyright Hold up to Scrutiny?". Slate. Retrieved August 9, 2011.
  4. Originally published in Song Stories for the Kindergarten. Chicago: Clayton E. Summy Co. 1896. as cited by Snyder, Agnes (1972). Dauntless Women in Childhood Education, 1856–1931. Washington, D.C.: Association for Childhood Education International. p. 244.
  5. ^ Masnick, Mike (June 13, 2013). "Lawsuit Filed to Prove Happy Birthday Is in The Public Domain; Demands Warner Pay Back Millions of License Fees". Techdirt.
  6. Clifft, Candice (2007). "Little Loomhouse". Louisville Life Program. Kentucky Educational Television.
  7. Brauneis (2010), p. 7.
  8. Brauneis (2010), p. 14.
  9. Brauneis (2010), pp. 31–32.
  10. ^ Weiser, Benjamin (June 13, 2013). "Birthday Song's Copyright Leads to a Lawsuit for the Ages". The New York Times. Retrieved June 14, 2013.
  11. "'Happy Birthday' and the Money It Makes". The New York Times. December 26, 1989. Retrieved March 7, 2013.
  12. Williams, Wendy (February 5, 2010). "Transcript". The Wendy Williams Show. Archived from the original on October 9, 2011. Retrieved September 17, 2014. We paid $700 to say happy birthday. You got to pay for the song. Williams used the song during an episode of her show.
  13. Mohan, Isabel (December 29, 2012). "The Richest Songs in the World, BBC Four, Review". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
  14. Warner, Brian (March 12, 2014). "The 10 Richest Songs of All Time". Celebrity Net Worth. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
  15. EU countries observe the "life + 70" copyright standard.
  16. 537 US 186, Justice Breyer, dissenting, II, C.
  17. Brauneis (2010).
  18. "Free to Sing - 'Happy Birthday to You' In Public Domain After Settlement". IP Iustitia. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  19. Alice Jacobs (1911). The Elementary Worker and His Work. Sunday Schools. p. 63. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
  20. Konstantinides, Anneta (May 12, 2015). "That's Not What She Wished For! Grandma, 102, Blows Out Her Birthday Candles... and Ends Up Losing Her Teeth Instead". The Daily Mail. London. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
  21. Bates, Daniel (November 25, 2011). "Happy Birthday Mr President, I'm a Bit Out of Breath: Secret Behind Marilyn Monroe's Most Memorable Moment". The Daily Mail. London. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  22. Higham, Nick (December 24, 2000). "Victor Borge: The Great Dane". BBC News. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  23. Logan, Brian (March 14, 2012). "Rainer Hersch's Victor Borge". The Guardian (Review). London. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  24. "Sports Night "Intellectual Property" Quotes". imdb.com. Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  25. Dean, Katie (August 30, 2005). "Cash Rescues Eyes on the Prize". Wired. Retrieved May 11, 2008.
  26. "PBS News: PBS Celebrates Black History Month with an Extensive Lineup of Special Programming" (Press release). PBS. January 10, 2008. Retrieved May 11, 2008.
  27. "Zubin Mehta, Happy Birthday Variation, Symphony" (Video). Retrieved June 6, 2015 – via You Tube.
  28. "Zubin Mehta Does Variations on 'Happy Birthday'". Best Jon Bon. Retrieved June 6, 2015 – via YouTube.
  29. "Happy Birthday, Curiosity!". NASA. August 4, 2013. Retrieved August 7, 2013.
  30. "Stephen Colbert Creates Royalty-Free Alternative to 'Happy Birthday' For 'Happy Birthday's Happy Birthday". Techdirt. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  31. "The Stephen Colbert Audience Experience". Worcester Telegram & Gazette. March 10, 2014. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  32. "Blue Bloods Transcript 06x07 The Bullitt Mustang". Foreverdreaming. November 7, 2015. Retrieved November 14, 2015.

Works cited

External links

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