[78-L] Oldest Happy Birthday Recording

[Patrick Feaster]

For those who'd like a detailed legal analysis of the whole "Happy Birthday
To You" situation, see
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1111624 -- which
concludes, in effect, that there's almost certainly no current copyright in
the song itself and that the 1935 copyright covers only a
specific arrangement.

I've been studying the song's history for a while and can do the Wikipedia
article one better: the complete lyrics "Happy birthday to you, happy
birthday to you, happy birthday, dear John, happy birthday to you," to be
sung to the tune "Good Morning to You," were published in 1911 in *The
Elementary Worker and His Work -- *which doesn't print the tune itself,
thereby sidestepping the issue of "unauthorized" publications of the tune
with new words.  Other sources I've turned up appear to show the song in
use, with the "Happy Birthday" lyrics, back to the year 1900.  I've seen no
indication that the Hills sisters came up with (or even claimed to have come
up with) those lyrics, and much evidence to the contrary that school
teachers and their students improvised their own lyrics to fit numerous
classroom situations as they arose.  In fact, that adaptability probably
explains the tune's popularity in school settings ca. 1900-1920; the "Happy
Birthday" version was then the one most suited for repurposing outside the
classroom in ways the Hills sisters hadn't anticipated.  Eventually I'd
like to draw the evidence together into an article of some sort (early
newspaper references showing the song being sung at parties, etc.), but
there's the thumbnail version.

There's probably a brown wax cylinder out there somewhere containing a home
recording of a birthday party, ca. 1915, with "Happy Birthday To You" in
it.  The song was definitely in widespread use by that date.  I bought a
brown wax cylinder labeled "Birthday" a few years ago with this
possibility in mind but must admit I haven't yet listened to it.

 - Patrick