farmdoc's blog post number 50

Happy Birthday to You, according to Guinness World Records, is the most popular song in the English language. Its melody comes from a song Good Morning to All written in 1893 by two Kentucky kindergarten teachers, Patty and Mildred Hill, as a ditty their young students could easily remember and sing. Indeed the Hills’ students made up the words to Happy Birthday to You and sang them to the tune of Good Morning to All. The combined melody and lyrics were first published in 1912. The song has been translated into over 18 languages, but it’s mostly sung in English. It was first copyrighted in 1935. In 1998 Warner Chappell, part of The Time-Warner Corporation, paid US$15m for the company owning the copyright. Warner Chappell – which reportedly charges US$10,000 for use of the song in for-profit situations, resulting in royalties of about US$2m per year – claims that the US copyright expires in 2030 until when public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid. But recent legal opinion doubts that the US copyright remains valid. Anyway singing it in private is free – as is singing For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, which is in the public domain and, incidentally, is the second most popular song in the English language. Today is the 61st anniversary of my birth. Happy birthday to me.