Isn’t it time we revamped or find an alternative to the Happy Birthday To You song?
I have spent part of my life learning how to read and write music. Above all I have also spent a good deal of this life learning how to compose and analyse songs written by others. It is amazing though to notice how the public perceives such pieces of music.
Although a musical composition often uses musical notation and has a single author, this is not always the case. A work of music can have multiple composers, which often occurs in popular music when all members of a band collaborate to write a song or in musical theatre, when one person writes the melodies, a second person writes the lyrics and a third person orchestrates the songs. The piece is finally given a structure and becomes a song. This is when the song is released to the public.
There are many ‘songs’ which are sung by many people all over the world and one wonders why such songs have become universal. After my Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music certificate courses in music, I began to analyse the elements involved in the Happy Birthday To You, song which has been used all over the world for over 100 years. The song is quite popular and it is invariably used at many birthday parties. If I were to ask people over ten years old in any country who have never heard or sung the Happy Birthday To You song, the chances will be I will get a zero response. Almost everyone has sung or at least heard this song.
However, from my point of view, the Happy Birthday To You song is hardly a great composition at all. Let us look at the nuts and bolts behind this so-called composition. It doesn’t rhyme. It doesn’t sound good when sung either solo or even en masse. It seldom scans when personalised and it is monotonous as three of its four lines are exactly the same. For the legal apparatchiks at Zimura and other copyright societies, however, the familiar refrain is most likely met with a feeling of nausea that far outweighs the sensation of eating half a kilogramme of sponge cake and marzipan.
Am I the only one who thinks that people deserve something a little better on their birthday?
I really do not mean to be critical, but anybody can write whatever they want and call it a song. In my opinion, there is nothing magical about the Happy Birthday To You song as we all know it. It has only become a ritual and a tradition where every child growing up in modern society learns to sing it as a reward for the gifts and presents in front of them. However, songwriting is an art and a science in itself. There is a craft to it. There are so many different approaches for how to write a song. There is the need to pick and categorise a melody, a rhythm and brainstorming lyric ideas before arranging a draft of the song and finally recording it.
Many great artistes have tried to usurp Happy Birthday To You, hoping to dislodge it from its permanent number-one spot in the charts of anniversary ditties. The Beatles attempted it with Birthday on their White album. Stevie Wonder had a good go with his own Happy Birthday To You in 1981 — although that was exclusively dedicated to Martin Luther King.
Yet, in the 100 years since it appeared as sheet music — on March 4, 1924 — no waltz, chant, poem or madrigal has managed to shift what must be a strong contender for the most tuneless dirge ever composed, shouted at us annually by people who, for the rest of the year, wouldn’t even dream of singing in a pub.
At least there’s the consolation of cake (sometimes with candles), which invariably comes directly afterwards.
Far from being ‘written by Anon’, or an anonymous author, as is so often and erroneously claimed, the Happy Birthday To You song was, until 2015, the copyright of the New York-based publishing behemoths. If you wanted to use it in a film, a television show or a concert, you had to pay. And pay they did — Disney paid the sum of $5,000 for the rights to perform it in theme-park parades.
If I was an executive at Disney, I would have asked these powerful organisations to take me to court stating who the author of the song was and also to let me know who was benefiting from the royalties earned by such a song. I would also ask them if the song was not in public domain since it was written over 100 years ago. (If that is the case, the author would have been over a hundred years old and must be dead by now) But I guess Disney just thought that $5,000 was such a small amount and decided to settle.
In my opinion, since we do not know who created the Happy Birthday To You song, it should by now be in the public domain. It should now be available to the public as a whole and not being subject to copyright or other restrictions.
Wishing someone a happy birthday is always a good thing, but there is need to develop a well-structured song to go with it.
Another year around the sun is always something to celebrate! Sending birthday greetings is a wonderful way to honour the birthday of a partner, family member, friend, colleague, or any other loved one. When you’re deciding which birthday wishes to include within your celebratory birthday card gift, consider who you’re writing to. If you’re sending a sweet birthday message to a friend, you may want to go with something funny that reflects your goofy relationship. Maybe you’re sending a birthday card to your grandmother; a sweet birthday quote might be better suited instead of ”How old are you now?” repeated many times.
There isn’t a shortcut to being a good songwriter, so a brief explanation is not going to be especially helpful. You have to learn the craft like any other skill. Put the hours in, the days, the weeks, the months, the years. Writing something good, something original, takes time and a lot of work. Watch a few videos on songwriting to get familiar with some of the basics. Analyse some of your favourite songs - what key are they in, what chords do they use, what’s the melody like? What kind of rhythm? How do the lyrics relate to the melody? Learn the importance of repetition and variation on a theme. And just try writing something.
With the modern AI technology, one can create their own birthday song without fear of being sued by New York based publishing behemoths. What we need now is a cutting edge group of innovative youngsters who can push the boundaries of the Happy Birthday To You song to dizzy heights. You might even end up with the world’s most popular birthday tune and even get big royalties from it if the rest of the world adopts it. So have a go! Don’t be shy!
Just a thought.
Feedback: frezindi@gmail.com
