This episode was exclusive to our Patreon backers until March 21, 2025. Want to hear bonus episodes when they’re released? Back this show on Patreon for just $1 a month!
It’s our fifth birthday!
For this special birthday episode, we’re looking at the song that a lot of us sing over a birthday cake: “Happy Birthday To You.”
And does this song ever have a wild history.
The birthday of “Happy Birthday To You” came in 1893.
It was likely around for some time before that, but 1893 is the year when it appeared in the book Song Stories for the Kindergarten.
The authors: Patty and Mildred Hill, two sisters from Kentucky who had spent a number of years developing songs for youngsters.
Patty was a teacher, while Mildred would later become a musicologist.
The song was actually called “Good Morning To All”; kindergarten teachers could use it as the morning welcome song for the class.
But it was the alternate set of lyrics for birthdays that caught the public imagination.
It’s the song Marilyn Monroe breathlessly sang to President John F. Kennedy, raising many eyebrows.
It’s also the song the Mars Rover sang to itself in 2013.
It’s likely the most popular English-language song of all time, and really the only English-language birthday standard.
Before it came along, people didn’t really sing a birthday song; birthday parties had only started to become common in the 1830s.
All that said, songs are protected by copyright, even the ones that seemingly everyone knows and sings.
And for public performances of copyrighted works, you usually need a public performance license so that the owner gets paid for the use of their work.
There was a story in 1941 in which Patty Hill reportedly complained to her publishers about Jack Benny doing a swing-style version of the song, and she didn’t want any more swing versions of “Happy Birthday To You.”
There were reports in the 90s that Girl Scout troops would prohibit members from singing because they were worried they’d be on the hook for royalties.
Movies and TV shows would have characters sing “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” or other such songs so they didn’t have to pay for “Happy Birthday To You.”
And think of all those fast casual restaurants that wrote their own songs to celebrate customers’ birthdays by putting them on the spot in front of all the other diners.
Still, according to Quartz, Warner Music Group made an estimated $2 million a year in royalties for public performances of the song after it obtained the copyright.
But for years and years, people have been going to court to argue that the copyright for “Happy Birthday To You” should have expired long before those royalties were paid.
Without going too deep into the weeds of US intellectual property law, some researchers found a publication of the song that hadn’t included the necessary copyright notice, which essentially invalidated any claims that the copyright was still in effect all those years later.
Plaintiffs reached a settlement with Warner in which the company paid millions to those who had paid to use the song.
And Warner agreed to release the “Happy Birthday To You” copyright into the public domain.
So as of 2016, you can sing that song whenever and wherever you like, royalty free.
Happy Birthday to You (Quartz)