The Story behind "Happy Birthday to You"
添加时间：2021-01-18 22:24:30 浏览：2934
Do you know that the "Happy Birthday to You" song is the first song sung in outer space?
Apollo IX astronauts sang it on March 8, 1969. It is one of the most popular English songs of all time. Here's the story behind it.
The song was written by two sisters from Kentucky, Mildred and Patty Smith Hill. It was first published under the title of "Good Morning to All" in 1893. It was used as a classroom greeting. Teachers sang it each day to welcome their students to the classroom.
The composer, Mildred Hill, was a concert pianist. Her sister Patty Smith Hill wrote the original lyrics for the song while she was a teacher in a kindergarten in Louisville, Kentucky, where Mildred also taught.
The Hill sisters copyrighted their songs on October 16,1893 .
However, it appeared without their agreement in Robert H. Coleman's songbook on March 4, 1924. Coleman changed part of the lyrics to say, "Happy Birthday to You", although the song still had its original title.
The song was then published several times over the next ten years, often with small changes in the lyrics.
In 1934, when the song was sung every night in a Broadway Musical, another Hill sister, Jessica, went to court over the copyright problem of the song. She was angry about the theft of the song and the failure to pay to her sisters. She won her case.
The Hill family owned the rights to the melody and had to be paid every time the song was part of a commercial production.
The Hill sisters, who devoted their lives to educating children, could never imagine that the simple little song would continue to earn about $2million every year.