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Which is the most popular song in the world?

ACCORDING to the Guinness Book of World Records, Happy Birthday to You, a four-line musical ditty is the most popular song in the English language.

The song was originally written in 1893, when two sisters, Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill, wrote the memorable tune to accompany a simple greeting with which schoolteachers could welcome their students to class each day: Good morning to you, Good morning to you, Good morning, dear children, Good morning to all.

The greeting song was published in 1893 in the songbook, Song Stories for the Kindergarten, for the first time. In the 1920’s, this song this song came to be sung as Happy Birthday to You. These lyrics first appeared in a songbook edited by Robert H. Coleman in March 1924, where these were published as the second stanza of Good Morning to You.

By the mid 1930’s, the new ditty had been sung in Broadway musical The Band Wagon and used for Western Union’s first ‘singing telegram’.

When Irving Berlin’s musical As Thousands Cheer used the ‘Good Morning to All’ melody, Clayton F. Summy Company filed a lawsuit against him on behalf of the Hill sisters and was able to secure the copyright of the song in 1935. Today, the copyright royalties are split between Summy-Birchard Music and the Hill Foundation, the foundation established for the Hill sisters.

Copyright restrictions do not apply every time someone sings Happy Birthday to You to a family member or friend. Royalties are due only for commercial use or if the song is performed in public.

— Compiled by Gaurav Sood