"Happy Birthday To You is a terrible song," says Uri Bram in Atoms vs Bits. "It's a terrible song in general and a terrible birthday song especially. It sounds like a dirge."
And that's not all, says Uri. It's hard to fit the birthday person's name into the song. And the octave jump in the third line is a challenge for most people who aren't professional singers.
"This song's sole purpose is to be short and happy and sing-alongable, and the only thing it achieves is being short," he says.
Uri goes on to consider different well-known melodies that could be replace the current standard. He weighs contenders like Ode to Joy, Yankee Doodle, and When the Saints Go Marching In. The last two songs are strong because they were written for people who aren't good at singing. But his winning tune is Twinkle, Twinkle:
Twinkle Twinkle is not my favorite melody. If I were king of the universe and could force the choice of the new Birthday Tune, I would do much better. But if there's another thing the last few years have taught us, it's that you don't get to vote for the person you truly you want, you get forced to vote for the person with the best chance of beating something else you truly despise. And Twinkle Twinkle simply is the universally-acceptable candidate that can save us from the terrors of the current birthday song. It's short, it's familiar, it's slow enough to sing while bringing the cake out, and adaptable enough that you can spend your whole childhood singing Twinkle Twinkle and ABCD without noticing they're the same @#$ing tune. It was good enough for Mozart, and it's good enough for you. Happy Birthday, friends.
By the way, check out Uri's fun game, which you can play at a birthday party! It's called "Person Do Thing."
Previously:
• The twisted history of the Happy Birthday song—and the copyright shenanigans that keep it profitable
• Lawsuit: 'Happy Birthday' is not in copyright, and Warner owes the world hundreds of millions for improperly collected royalties
• After 80 years, Happy Birthday song is finally in the public domain