We are used to hear 'Happy Birthday' song in every birthday gathering; you can hear it from music boxes, greeting cards, toys, or other related products but have you noticed that you don't hear it as often from TV? Have asked yourself why?
Written by two sisters from Kentucky, Mildred and Patty Hill, it was originally entitled “Good Morning to All,” and intended as a classroom greeting from teachers to students:
Good morning to you
Good morning to you
Good morning, dear children
Good morning to all.
Mildred came up with the melody for “Good Morning to All” (a range of six notes, repetitive lyric and an average running time of about 12 seconds). Patty added the words.
It was first published in 1893 as part of a songbook and over the next 30 years it spread with the significant change of replacing you with the name of the person it was addressed to. However, to this day, no one knows who wrote the new words to Mildred Hill’s melody. “Happy Birthday to You” first appeared in a songbook in 1924, edited by Robert H. Coleman. Aided by radio and sound movies, it became hugely popular and soon overshadowed the original lyric. It was so widely heard and sung that many assumed it was public domain.
"When the melody showed up in the Irving Berlin musical As Thousands Cheer, uncredited and uncompensated, a third Hill sister, Jessica, filed suit. In court she demonstrated the obvious link between “Happy Birthday to You” and “Good Morning to All,” securing a copyright for her sisters. Unfortunately Mildred was too late to benefit, having died in 1916."
"Jessica Hill took her sisters’ tune to a Chicago-based publisher, Clayton F. Summy Co., who officially published and copyrighted it in 1935. A few years later, Summy’s company was bought out by a New York accountant, John Sengstack, who renamed it Birch Tree Ltd. They held on to the publishing for “Happy Birthday” until 1988, when Warner-Chappell, the largest music publisher in the world, purchased Birch Tree for $25 million. Today the song brings in about $2 million in royalties annually, with proceeds split between Warner-Chappell and the Hill Foundation. (Both sisters died unmarried and childless, so the money has presumably been going to charity or to nephew Archibald Hill, ever since Patty Hill passed away in 1946.)"
According to the 1998 Guinness Book of World Records, "Happy Birthday to You" is the most recognized song in the English language, followed by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims 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 the European Union, the copyright of the song will expire on December 31, 2016.
via performingsongwriter.com and wikipedia
