Happy Birthday Song: Lyrics, History and Custom Versions

The Happy Birthday song, officially titled "Happy Birthday to You," has four lines: "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear [name], happy birthday to you." The melody dates back to 1893, and a 2016 court settlement left the song in the public domain in the US. You can sing it, record your own version or rewrite it without paying a license fee, but other people's recordings of it are still protected.

What are the lyrics to the Happy Birthday song?

The standard lyrics are four lines, and three of them are the same.

Happy birthday to youHappy birthday to youHappy birthday, dear [name]Happy birthday to you

Many families add a tag at the end. Common ones include "and many more," "how old are you now?" or a cheer followed by the person's age. None of these extras are part of the original song, so use whatever your family already does.

How do you sing it without going off key?

Start lower than feels natural. The melody jumps up a full octave on "dear [name]," and that jump is why groups so often crack on the third line. If you start on a comfortable low note, the high note on "dear" will still be in reach.

How do you fit a long name into the song?

The name slot holds two or three syllables comfortably, as in "dear Ma-ri-a" or "dear Jor-dan." For longer names, use a nickname or squeeze the extra syllables in quickly before the last line. For one-syllable names like "Sam," just hold the vowel a little longer.

What were the original Happy Birthday song lyrics?

The tune first appeared as "Good Morning to All," a classroom greeting song by sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill. It was published in 1893 in a songbook called Song Stories for the Kindergarten. The original words were:

Good morning to youGood morning to youGood morning, dear childrenGood morning to all

Over the next few decades, people started singing birthday words to the same melody, and those lyrics showed up in print in the early 1900s. Nobody has been able to prove exactly who wrote the birthday version. That uncertainty became the center of a long copyright fight.

Why did people think the song was copyrighted?

The Clayton F. Summy Company registered a copyright on an arrangement in 1935. Warner/Chappell Music acquired that company's successor in 1988 and collected licensing fees for decades, which is why restaurants made up their own birthday songs and why the song rarely showed up in films. In September 2015, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that Warner/Chappell did not hold a valid copyright to the lyrics.

In 2016, Warner/Chappell agreed to a $14 million settlement, and the court approved a deal that left the song in the public domain in the US. That is why you now hear the real song in movies, TV shows and chain restaurants.

Is the Happy Birthday song still copyrighted?

No, not in the US. The composition (the melody and the words) is treated as public domain there. But every recording of it is a separate work, and those recordings are owned by whoever made them.

This matters most for video and podcast creators. Here is how it usually plays out:

• You sing or play it yourself: generally fine to use, including in monetized videos, because you own your recording.
• You use a commercial recording: that recording is protected, and platforms may flag it. On YouTube, rights holders can claim matching audio through Content ID, which YouTube's help center explains here.
• You use a famous artist's birthday song (Stevie Wonder, the Beatles and so on): both the song and the recording are under copyright, so you need licenses for both.

Canadian readers should know that copyright terms differ by country, and the rules for public domain status depend on when the authors died and which law applied at the time. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office is the official starting point, and the U.S. Copyright Office FAQ covers the US basics. This is general information, not legal advice; if money is involved, ask a lawyer.

How do you sing Happy Birthday in Spanish?

The most common Spanish version is "Cumpleaños feliz," sung to the same melody. In many Latin American families it goes:

Cumpleaños felizTe deseamos a tiCumpleaños, [name]Cumpleaños feliz

In Spain, people often sing "Cumpleaños feliz, cumpleaños feliz, te deseamos todos, cumpleaños feliz." Mexican families also sing "Feliz cumpleaños a ti" in place of the first lines.

What is Las Mañanitas?

"Las Mañanitas" is the traditional Mexican birthday song, and in many Mexican and Mexican-American homes it is sung before or instead of "Cumpleaños feliz." The first verse is:

Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el rey DavidHoy por ser día de tu santo te las cantamos a tiDespierta, mi bien, despierta, mira que ya amanecióYa los pajaritos cantan, la luna ya se metió

It is longer and more tuneful than the English song, and it is often performed by mariachi bands at parties. If the guest of honor grew up with it, singing it is a thoughtful touch.

What about French in Quebec?

Many Quebec families sing "Bonne fête à toi" to the familiar tune. Others sing "Gens du pays," written by Gilles Vigneault in 1975, which became Quebec's best-known birthday song. That one is still under copyright, so sing it at the party but license it before putting it in a video.

What is the Black Happy Birthday song?

The "Black Happy Birthday song" is Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday," released in 1980 on the album Hotter than July. Many Black families in the US and Canada sing it at birthday parties along with or instead of the traditional song.

Wonder wrote it as part of a campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday. That campaign succeeded: the holiday was signed into law in 1983 and first observed in 1986. The song is upbeat, much longer than the traditional one, and still under copyright.

What is the Beatles birthday song?

The Beatles song is simply called "Birthday," from their 1968 double album The Beatles, usually called the White Album. It is credited to Lennon–McCartney and opens with a loud, driving guitar riff, which makes it a favorite for party playlists and rock fans.

It is a full rock song rather than a sing-along greeting, so people play it rather than sing it to the cake. Like all Beatles songs, it is copyrighted, and licensing it for a video is expensive and rarely approved for small creators.