If there is anything that makes me believe in the good of this world, it’s the day in 2016 when the song “Happy Birthday to You” entered the public domain. Growing up, there was nothing that got taken for granted more than that song. After all, every day was somebody’s birthday, and who wouldn’t want to break out this greatest hit? With the crowd singing along, you are participating in a pastime that is much older than you or me. It’s the celebration of life that is so moving, giving us one small moment where the focus is on us. We all know the words. There’s not that many, it will take a matter of seconds, and by the end, the anticipation of the fun ahead overwhelms us.
The issue is that this is something that we’ve mostly had to experience in private prior to 2016. Something that I am thankful that the next generation will never have to face is the threat of being sued for singing “Happy Birthday to You” in public. Where it sounds like a crime from The Age of Charlemagne, it’s actually something that was of genuine concern to the entire public. For a song that is regarded as the most recognized song in the English language, it’s difficult to have many media representations. If you pop on a film, odds are that they will forgo the price tag in favor of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” which I admire just because some song had to do the heavy lifting.
That is why going to a restaurant on your birthday was a crapshoot. You knew that you weren’t getting “Happy Birthday to You,” but what DID their song sound like? Every place had its own quirky version on the motif, and it was often exuberance meant to be played at double speed. I get that these places had no other choice (well, they did… but where’s the novelty in just ignoring you?), but they all have their own familiar “we’re not ripping this song off” quality to them that has become quite the art form. I’m pretty it’s been institutionalized so much that most places wouldn’t sing “Happy Birthday to You” if you paid them. We’ve just found different ways to deal with this headache.
The story goes that the song was written by Mildred and Patty Hill. Patty was a Kindergarten teacher who used music to teach her children, which included a similarly-melodic “Good Morning to All,” which was used as a greeting. She would release it for the first time published in 1924 by Robert H. Coleman. The Hill Sisters claimed that people using the melody of “Good Morning to All” in “Happy Birthday to You” was unauthorized. By 1935, they would file copyright that was carried over to Warner/Chappell Music in 1988 when they bought it and deemed any cover that didn’t pay them moolah was illegal.
So yeah, if you want to be mad at anyone about one of the most important repressions in American music history, it’s a Kindergarten teacher. In most cases, I would be for copyrighting your own personal creation. However, this song is a weird case where there should’ve been a moment where its transcendent place in pop culture should’ve made it more accessible. It’s not like we were trying to sing Chubby Checker’s “The Twist.” We were singing a song that basically was six words long and had a repetition so familiar that your two-year-old gets it. There has to be some humanity over this.
On the one hand, it’s made society a much more interesting place. I would equate it to how The Hayes Code secretly made film better. Oh sure, censoring authors was terrible and kept more interesting conversations from being had, but it just meant that artists had to be more clever. They had to find ways to code things, add these winks and a nod to the audience in the theater with innuendos. Film became fun because there was no way to be explicit about certain things, and it enriched the ideas of metaphor and subtext throughout history.
Much like The Hayes Code, The Hill Sisters being outright greedy jerks just meant that the world had to find new ways to express this annual tradition. This meant we could manipulate into different genres, speeding up the tempo and giving everyone their own chance to express themselves.
Sure, it’s made going to restaurants a crapshoot, but think of the endless hits that have been made from this decision. Here are a handful of personal favorites that show just how diverse this web goes:
The Beatles – “Birthday”Lesley Gore – “It’s My Party”Mr. Rogers – “Happy Birthday”Altered Images – “Happy Birthday”Wall-E-Weasel and Señor Beaverotti – “You're the Birthday Boy or Girl!"NOFX – “New Birthday Song”
I think what The Hill Sisters inadvertently did was force everyone to be creative, giving us a chance to expand upon those six words and find the deeper emotional catharsis that comes with this holiday. Most of the versions feature more verses and minutes that expand upon the theme. They become personalized messages, making them feel much more special. If there’s anything lacking in them, it’s that they can’t be distilled down to 30 seconds quite as efficiently as “Happy Birthday to You.” You’re cutting a melody down to a small bit that clearly has more to say. It’s rude to cut off, but you need to get that party going.
Still, something is lacking when you’re unable to do something that has become human nature. When we see a birthday cake with those blazing candles atop the sumptuous frosting, we want to break out into the song. We want to fulfill something that will likely be programmed into humanity for centuries to come. How do we not sing the great unifying anthem of our time? It seems cruel… and that’s what watching movies have felt like. If you didn’t have a budget for it, you were screwed into a lifeless vision of happiness. You got the candles blown, but something was missing.
Because of this, I don’t know that birthdays ever felt naturally depicted throughout the 20th century. Oh sure I was able to get the sentiment out of these moments, but it’s like a YouTube video with copyright claims. You’re watching a video whose entire soul has been sucked out because you can’t hear the joy, the scuffle of a foot on the floor. You can only picture what this world sounds like, but it’s depressing and cheap.
Maybe I am overreacting to this, but at the same time, we’re still only four years out from “Happy Birthday to You” entering the public domain. I can’t say that I followed the lawsuit in any meaningful way, but the news of the verdict filled my heart with joy. In a time where many injustices go unchecked, to have this one thing finally changed filled my heart with relief that I didn’t know it needed. Suddenly generations who went broke having to pay unseen fines were free to express themselves in the correct ways.
I remember going to a restaurant that very week and seeing the familiar birthday pastiche go down. I felt like going up to the waiter and saying “My good man, don’t you know? ‘Happy Birthday to You’ is in the public domain.” I didn’t because I am a rational person and knew how stupid I would look. But still, there was finally a time where reality wasn’t oppressed because somebody kept six words for themselves. Life was allowed to feel richer, generations able to never know sadness because they never had to hear some bastardized “Happy, happy birthday from all of us to you…” tripe.
I remember first seeing it on the HBO series The Leftovers that summer and feeling like this was real. We were going to be all right. Then they sang it again, and it was then that I dropped all of my worries. This wasn’t just a TV show where the rapture took away those Warner/Chappell moneybags. It was a genuine sign that soon I would hear crowds sing the song on TV, in film, and not feel worried about lawsuits.
This is how I choose to celebrate today, July 8, by recalling one of the strangest controversies of my lifetime. Everyone had birthdays. Everyone knew this song. And yet nobody could actually be seen singing it in public. While I would never go out of my way to call it out of the greatest songs ever written, it has this weird ability to cut to the core of this moment, making you recognize the passing of time. It’s a unified acceptance of mortality presented as a celebration, and we all deserve to have that moment where somebody sings:
Happy birthday to youHappy birthday to youHappy birthday dear ThomasHappy birthday to you
I admit in this context it’s all a bit self-serving, but knowing that if/when I get to go out and celebrate, there is now a greater chance that I will recognize their birthday song. I will be able to feel normal for 30 seconds, as attention from strangers is drawn on me. We all laugh, knowing that we all get that extra bit of flan once a year. Few social pastimes feel overdue as this one, and I hope to sing this song to you when your birthday comes around.
If anything has shown the light of the future, it’s Netflix having dozens of covers of “Happy Birthday to You.” Even if it’s the laziest hunk of junk imaginable, having Pikachu sing it adds something endearing. I hope that somebody, maybe even one of them ninja turtles, gets to sing this song to you and recognize what this is: novelty. It’s finally allowed to exist in its true form, and we have to make up for the lost time.
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