Have you ever sat in literally any restaurant and listened to the servers sing “Happy Birthday” to a customer?
If you really stop and think, no you haven’t. You’ve probably only heard the often meager, sometimes tone deaf groups of restaurant employees chanting and clapping an old drinking song melody with any collection of words to go with, you know the one.
Why don’t they ever perform the song that you or I sing happily at home? Well, that’s because there isn’t a sneaky guy in a suit from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) sitting in the corner of your home waiting to bust you for playing material under copyright. Your local diner, on the other hand, they do have to worry about that.
According to the Guinness World Records, “Happy Birthday” is the most recognizable song in the English language. It has spread like a virus, infecting every continent and innumerous language speakers with various adaptations. But while the song can legally escape anyone’s lips at a park or in the privacy of their own home, businesses and employees know not to use the short tune or else they face legal repercussions.
Warner/Chappell Music has enjoyed a tight hold on the song since 1988 when it purchased the rights to the melody and lyrics from Birch Tree Group. Famously charging filmmakers multiple-figure fees to use the instantly recognizable melody, Warner/Chappell Music’s—a Warner Music Group division company—longtime copyright became the subject of a documentary film by Rupa Marya, who is suing Warner/Chappell Music for the rights to use the song for free.
U. S. District Court for the Central District of California Judge George H. King ruled at the end of September that Warner/Chappell Music didn’t really buy the rights to the famous eight bars of music when they bought Birch Tree Group’s copyright of the song.
Birch Tree Group purchased its copyright for “Happy Birthday” from Summy Co., which released a songbook with the first published copy of the “Happy Birthday” song in 1935, though it wasn’t the first time the melody had been published.
Penned and composed by two sisters, schoolteacher Patty Hill and musicologist/composer Mildred Hill, the original song was called “Good Morning to All,” and was the first song in the sisters’ children’s songbook, Song Stories for the Kindergarten, published in 1896. Their songbook is in the public domain, but Summy Co. appeared to have purchased the rights to the song, adding the “Happy Birthday” lyrics along with the original for “Good Morning to All.”
Judge King ruled that Summy Co. bought a specific piano arrangement from the Hill sisters, but not the song and melody itself. Warner/Chappell Music is challenging the ruling, so legally, it remains unclear whether local eateries and independent films can begin singing the famous refrain.
Personally, I remember the song as my mother sang it when I was very young. She used it to wake us up in the morning, and it never really clicked to me that the cute song my mom would sing—inserting her own silly nicknames for my siblings and me—was the same song as “Happy Birthday.” It’s obviously the same melody, but the rhythm is so different, it’s clear to me now that she must’ve grown up hearing it in its original, classroom welcoming form, or more probably my grandmother did, passing it down to her daughter.
Part of it is how slow people sing “Happy Birthday.” For crying out loud, it’s a celebration, not a funeral dirge, people! Now that we may have a chance to sing this obnoxious song loudly and proudly, let’s try to get a decent rhythm going, and can we please agree on a pitch before we start?
Arts Editor Joe Payne wishes his wife Candice a happy birthday, and will sing her the song without fear of litigation on Oct. 25. You can reach him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 22-29, 2015.
