The lyrics are: I don't know what I've been told. Someone here is getting old. Good news is dessert is free. Bad news is we sing off key. Happy Birthday TO YOU!
A bit of a trivia, "Happy Birthday" is the most-sung song in the world. The tune comes from an 1893 song called “Good Morning to All” that was composed by two Kentucky sisters, Patty and Mildred J. Hill, for kindergarteners to sing. During the next two decades, someone took this tune and overlaid it with new birthday-themed lyrics. (No one knows exactly who wrote the iconic “Happy Birthday” words, but there isn’t much evidence that it was the Hills.) A massive hit was soon born, and in a quintessentially American tradition, the chase was on to turn an innocent family-oriented phenomenon into profit.
In 1934, a third Hill sister, Jessica, sued Irving Berlin for unauthorized use of the birthday standard in a Broadway musical As Thousands Cheer. Though the case was later dismissed, Jessica didn’t come up empty-handed. The next year, working in conjunction with a music publisher known as the Clayton F. Summy Company, she decided to copyright “Happy Birthday to You,” including both music and lyrics. Jessica and the company collected royalties for years until 1988, when Warner/Chappell Music bought out Clayton F. Summy, including all its copyright holdings, for $25 million.
Find out Why We Should Stop Singing 'Happy Birthday' at Pacific Standard.