MARCH 4th - Happy Birthday, "Happy Birthday." Maybe.



Do you know the history of the song “Happy Birthday to You?" If you do, congratulations. You must be a musical historian. However, if you just sing the song when celebrating someone having the good sense, physical fortitude, or sheer luck to not die for another year and never particularly think about the particulars, then you may find the subsequent information interesting. The song goes back to the two Hill sisters, Patty and Mildred, who wrote the song “Good Morning to All” for teachers to sing to their children. This melody became the basis for “Happy Birthday to You,” which is widely recognized as the most famous song in the world perhaps proving the virtues of simplicity. The creator of the birthday lyrics was the same person who invented the wheel--some person named Unknown. But the Hills were able to secure the copyright by proving the melody was theirs, and “Happy Birthday to You” was published by the Clayton F. Summy Publishing Company in 1935. The song and lyrics have changed hands through the years, winding its way to the current owner--Time Warner. Which is why restaurants need a license in order to sing the song to a customer--though I feel as this may be like the illegal-to-spit-on-the-sidewalk law.

So what does March 4th have to do with any of this? Glad you asked. On this day in 1924, Robert H. Coleman published a collection of songs which included “Good Morning to All” featuring the "Happy Birthday" lyrics as well. This development, due to a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo, would throw a major wrench into the subject of public domain and cause a whole other bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo to ensue, which is possibly why a good majority of the interwebs simply combined the two histories, saying a “Clayton F. Sunny” published the lyrics on March 4th, 1924. Because when something is convoluted and complex you can totally count on the internet to straighten things out with clarity and fact. Where do you think I get all those stories about Thomas Jefferson? Yep. The Interwebs.

In any case. Happy Birthday, “Happy Birthday.” Maybe.

This day has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more