they could become millionaires if they just changed the song into “Happy
Birthday to You” and copyrighted it. At some level, it may seem that they should
have realized that the ritual of birthday parties was likely to persist and gain in
popularity. They should have known that a song that ties into the birthday ritual
—a song that is very short, easy to memorize, and sung frequently—should be a
winner. And they should have realized that they could copyright the song and
extract millions from commercial outlets.
Easier said than done, as what is obvious now was not so obvious then. There
are so many other possible permutations of the song. There are sixteen words in
“Good Morning to You.” Suppose we decide to change half the words while
keeping the total number constant. There are thus 16!/8! (= 518,918,400) ways
to replace the words. Suppose there are one hundred words in the English
language that are simple enough to replace eight of the sixteen words. That
means there are 100^8 = ten quadrillion times 518,918,400 possible variants of
the song. It would be impossible to think through all of these possibilities in
advance and realize how to make a fortune by tweaking the song. So the
invention of “Happy Birthday to You” out of “Good Morning to You” was likely
just a random event, unlikely ever to happen. But it did happen. It was
unappreciated at first, but then a new contagion quietly started without
mentioning the author of the change, who is hopelessly forgotten. It led then to a
vast constellation of narratives involving the song infused into movies, TV
shows, and social media, among other formats.

Proposition 7: Narratives Thrive on Attachment: Human
Interest, Identity, and Patriotism
Usually economic narratives rely on human-interest stories for their contagion,
because human beings are attracted to such stories. When an identified
personality is associated with a narrative, a face we can picture in our minds,
then our brains involve our models of people, voices, and faces with the story,
lowering the likely rate of forgetting. But the human-interest stories themselves
may not be enough to make a narrative contagious. A successful economic
narrative is sometimes the invention of creative minds who sense what is
contagious and what is not, and who put the elements together well enough to
launch a contagious narrative. Those who aspire to create viral narratives must
choose their celebrities carefully because the narratives work best when the
intended audience personally recognizes and identifies with the celebrity.
For example, there is the George Washington and the cherry tree story, which
has been popular for over two hundred years. It first appeared in print soon after
Washington’s death in 1799, in a new edition of a best-selling book, The Life of
George Washington with Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself
and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen by Mason Locke Weems. Based on the
book’s title, it is clear that Weems was interested in launching tellable narratives
about Washington. Weems said he heard the cherry tree story from “an aged
lady, who was a distant relative, and, when a girl spent much of her time in the
family”:10
“When George,” said she, “was about six years old, he was made the wealthy
master of a hatchet! of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately
fond; and was constantly going about chopping every thing that came in his
way. One day, in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his
mother’s pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of
a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly, that I don’t
believe the tree ever got the better of it … “George,” said his father, “do you
know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?” This
was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but
quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of
youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he