If you grew up in the 1940s and the ‘80s in the Philippines, you will most certainly remember the song not only because it was semi-popularized by many top American pop artists of the era, but also because the new, winsome first lady of the time, Imelda Marcos, added it to her arsenal of pa-charming-charming (disarming) tricks to beguile such curmudgeons as Lyndon Baines Johnson, Fidel Castro and Libya’s Muammar Khadafy. But it was also a song honored and appreciated by all classes of the time. 

Dahil Sa Iyo first appeared in the 1937 film Bituing Marikit, the very first feature film of Sampaguita Pictures, although the song was heard on the Manila Hotel dance floor a year before. Bituing Marikit (Pretty Star) starred Elsa Oria and a young Rogelio de la Rosa. Mike Velarde Sr. is the original composer of the song and Dominador Santiago wrote the original Tagalog lyrics. The song bears a 1938 Filipino copyright.

The first feature film of the new Sampaguita Pictures, 1937. Notice that the text is in English. (Thanks to Simon Santos, Video48)

Lost in the whole kerfuffle of the iconic song’s etymology is that it was most probably plagiarized (or in more polite terms, served as “uncredited inspiration”) for a later, postwar American pop song. That lost connection has never been formally acknowledged and this article sets out to establish that tenuous link.

Who Were the Mike Velardes?

To better appreciate the provenance of Dahil Sa Iyo, remember that there were two Mike Velardes -- Sr. and Jr., father and son, “claiming” credit for it. (For purposes of clarity, “Miguel” will be used to refer to Mike Sr., and “Mike” for Junior.) Little is known today about Miguel Sr., other than he was a band leader and composer of the song in question. His namesake son, Mike, not only followed in his father’s footsteps as a band leader, but had also been a one-time Filipino movie actor through the Commonwealth years and continued as a film composer into the mid-1980s.

Mike’s other single compositions include Buhat, Ikaw, Minamahal Kita, Dating Sumpaan, Dalisay, Eternally Yours, Lahat ng Araw, Habang Buhay, Minamahal Kita, etc. He also scored a few Hollywood films. By 1964, Mike had his first Hollywood credit, Back Door to Hell, one of a handful of Grade-B Hollywood “war” films shot in the Philippines. In 1965, Mike scored the first film version of Nick Joaquin’s A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino.

Among the many awards Mike won were Best Conductor at the 1st International Popular Song Contest in Japan with his composition As Long as Forever in 1970 and the Cultural Achievement Award in Popular Music from the Philippine Government Cultural Association in 1975. His last film credit was Horror of the Blood Monsters, sadly, another Grade-B Hollywood film. In the last few decades or so of his life, Velarde dropped the “Jr.” which created even greater confusion with a new arrival, Brother Mariano “Mike” Velarde, the leader of the El Shaddai religious movement but of no relation to the musical Velardes.

Mike’s last Hollywood film commission in 1970. *(Source: IMDb)*

Before Mike Jr. died in 1986, he was awarded the Gawad CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) Para Sa Sining Award (for film music). I attempted to track down Velarde’s heirs and FILSCAP (the Filipino equivalent of ASCAP) with little success.

Dahil Sa Iyo was probably the first international hit song from a newly independent Philippines (predating Rosas Pandan). After 1960, Dahil Sa Iyo became a standard for popular recording vocalists of the era from at least three continents: Nat King Cole, The Lettermen, and Julio Iglesias.

The Impostor Appears

In 1940, a year before all hell broke loose in the World War, one Arthur Hammerstein and Dudley Wilkinson came out with their song, Because of You, in the US. For non-Filipinos, the words dahil sa iyo translates exactly as “because of you.”

On September 4, 1940, this song was published in the USA by Broadcast Music, Inc. (what would become the future BMI licensing agency). On December 12, 1940, Larry Clinton and His Orchestra recorded the song in Chicago with a Peggy Mann providing the vocals.[1] Then for a decade, the matter seemed to have lain dormant because more important matters like the war years, independence for the Philippines, reconstruction, and the Cold War quickly intervened.

[1] Victor matrix BS-053733. Because of you / Bluebird Orchestra ; Larry Clinton ; Peggy Mann - Discography of American Historical Recordings (ucsb.edu)

In 1951-52, following a trajectory eerily similar to that of Dahil sa Iyo, the American song Because of You made a bigger debut splash via a commercial film (or two for the US version). Its first appearance was in an undistinguished Hollywood movie called I Was an American Spy. In 1952, it then appeared more prominently a second time as the love theme of another American film blatantly called Because of You, with Loretta Young and Jeff Chandler. That the same song would appear in two different films from competing studios within two years of each other was a most uncommon practice, even for the American film and music industries.

The belated American film debuts of Because of You got the full Hollywood rollout – coming out in the cool new medium of the time, the 7-inch 45 rpm mini-LP vinyl record. The chosen crooner for the single release was up-and-coming Tony Bennett whose I Left My Heart in San Francisco fame would come later.

In 1951, with the newly independent Philippines already a market for US pop music, the American-made Because of You hit Manila airwaves once more, and the Velardes almost surely became aware of the sound-alike song.

Cultural Misappropriation

To my ears, Because of You sounds so eerily familiar to the older Dahil Sa Iyo. Velarde was never properly credited as the “source.”

What makes the matter highly suspect is that in the 1930-40s, even though ASCAP [the American Society of Composers and Producers, the body which monitors and audits the performance of registered popular pieces of music on broadcast media (radio and TV) and safeguards the royalties due the composers] had been around since 1914, and some of these very same American composers and publishers who belonged to it were less than upright when it came to registering their supposed original “compositions.”

The matter of “intellectual property,” the monitoring and distribution of royalties to registered composers, etc., was already quite advanced in the 1930s for US artists but it wasn’t so for artists from developing countries and newer territories, like the Philippines, at the time. As examples, here are three popular American songs of the mid-20th century whose roots belong to other sources but took on new titles in their Hollywood/Tin Pan Alley iterations and whose original sources, even though in the public domain, were never formally acknowledged:

• You’re Breaking My Heart (©1948) is the English version of a popular Italian song by Ruggero Leoncavallo (composer of I Pagliacci), Mattinata, which was first recorded in Italy by Enrico Caruso in 1904. Americans Pat Genaro and Sunny Skylar put in English lyrics and copyrighted it as the new song in 1948. 1949 HITS ARCHIVE: You’re Breaking My Heart - Vic Damone (his original #1 version) - YouTube

• The Loveliest Night of the Year (©1950), a beautiful waltz popularized in the 1951 Mario Lanza biopic, The Great Caruso, appropriated the Mexican waltz, Sobre Las Olas (“Over the Waves”) written by Juventino P. Rosas in 1888. SONGS OF LOVE: MARIO LANZA - THE LOVELIEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR (youtube.com)

The European and Mexican source works are public domain compositions (in the US). Since they were written in the 19th century/early 20th, their copyrights had lapsed by 1950, thus it was easy enough for anyone to “borrow” the melody by attaching new lyrics to it and registering ownership without fear of copyright infringement charges. Hammerstein and Wilkinson’s Because of You was copyrighted in the US in 1940, barely two years after Dahil Sa Iyo made its formal debut in the Filipino film Bituing Marikit. Coincidence? Very unlikely.

Because of You and Dahil sa Iyo shared the same chord progression 75% of the time.

The problem with popular song copyright/infringement suits is that the western musical scale is built of only twelve notes – twelve building blocks. At some point in time, depending on tempo and time scale assigned to the notes, two musical passages will sound very much alike – perhaps without their composers’ willfully and purposely “copying” from another source.

So it was in that spirit and practice of the times that I believe Dahil sa Iyo was appropriated by the American “authors” of Because of You.

Ordinarily, artists of any kind, particularly in the post-World War 2 years, are/were vigilant of their product and, if they have the right connections, are quick to pounce on “imitators”—to haul them to court to, of course, protect their work. (The most celebrated plagiarism lawsuits have taken place in the US, for which physical proximity or at least having a presence in the US of the principals, plays a large part. Those lawsuits were also litigated in the lifetimes of the principals.)

• A famous but very cut-and-dried musical plagiarism lawsuit—one midway between the 1940s and today, was the case against Beatle George Harrison’s for his 1970 single, My Sweet Lord. In 1981, a US court found Harrison guilty of plagiarism of the song, He’s So Fine, written by Ronnie Mack and popularized by The Chiffons in 1963. Harrison did not deny copying the song outright. In fact, the court accepted his candid defense that he may have subconsciously copied the song since he had heard it. The case dragged on for five years, and in February 1981, the ex-Beatle was ordered to pay $587,000 in damages, in addition to surrendering $1 million in accrued royalties.

• Then there is the 007 James Bond Theme.[2] It turns out that one Monty Norman really wrote the theme despite more famous film composer John Barry taking the credit for it. An English court ruled that Barry and the Bond film producers “borrowed” the theme from Mr. Norman without proper credit.

Back to Dahil sa Iyo. To Filipino ears, Because of You seems like an easy English version of Dahil sa Iyo; and in a way it was--except that the copyright authors of Because of You were Arthur Hammerstein and Dudley Wilkinson. Mr. Hammerstein was the uncle of famed Broadway lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (Show Boat, The Sound of Music, The King and I, South Pacific, etc.). The Hammersteins were known to be first a writing (lyrics) impresario and theatre-producing family—not a composing dynasty. Arthur’s partner, Dudley Wilkinson, has a spotty resume of some Broadway musicals to his name which date back to the 1920s when he started out with the young, rising Oscar, the very same nephew of his Because of You partner, Arthur. Other than Because of You, the Hammerstein-Wilkinson partnership has no other (hit) songs to its credit.

[2] So Mr. Bond... Who really did write your theme music? (audiomasterclass.com)

Because of the time chronology and the prevailing “cultural misappropriation” tenor of the times, one can almost safely state that Because of You was “inspired” by Dahil Sa Iyo. It is also so curiously strange that the surviving Mike Velarde did not pursue any legal remedies for the infringement of his father’s composition by Hammerstein-Wilkinson.

All the example songs listed above which “borrowed” from public domain sources and registered under new titles, changed a few notes, transposed the key, tinkered with the chord progressions to make them sound significantly different to the ordinary listener’s ear but to more astute musicians and their better trained ears, the free “adaptation” is inherently recognizable.

So, together with San Francisco Bay Area-based music professor, choral director and arranger George Gemora Hernandez (best known for his choral arrangements of Rosas Pandan performed by choirs around the world), we compared the two pieces, side by side, examining the chord progression of Because of You against Dahil sa Iyo. Sure enough, Hernandez found that 75% of the time, the two pieces shared the same chord progression.

In addition, there is the prosody (the study of syllabic assignment and patterns of rhythm used in the lyrical structure of a song or poem) of the two compositions. Again, side by side, and even without going into a line-by-line translation, the set-up and construction are so uncannily similar that one can safely conclude they both came from one and the same source.

How Did the American Recording Industry Connect with the Song?

There are two possible scenarios by which Dahil Sa Iyo tried to break legally into the American music marketplace. The first one began even before World War II.

Tom Spinosa, a San Francisco-based band leader whose orchestra used to play on American President Lines ships which served Manila even before the war, recalled that he had met Miguel Velarde (Sr.) and Dahil Sa Iyo as early as 1936 at the Manila Hotel. So from the very start, Spinosa, as an American, was drawn to the song. However, other events intervened (i.e., Because of You getting published in the US in 1940, and then the War breaking out) until Spinosa was able to return to Manila two times postwar, first in 1946, then in 1949—both times still in pursuit of taking the song to the US market but with Mike Jr. already as his contact.

The late San Francisco-based US bandleader Tom Spinosa claimed to have firsthand stories of early negotiations with the Velardes of trying to bring *Dahil Sa Iyo* to the American music marketplace as early as 1949.

Spinosa recalled: “When I met Mike Jr. at the Jai-Alai night club in Manila in 1946, Mike did not have the song with him. But when we met again in May of 1949, he told me his father had given the song to him (i.e., presumably the rights) . . . but somehow, Spinosa had also written new English lyrics to it.

So, in 1949, Spinosa supposedly made a deal with Mike that the bandleader would take the tune to the US and try to do something with it, whether through his publishing company or someone else's, and with composers’ rights and royalties split equally between the two parties. So per Spinosa’s account of the tale as late as February 1964, he plugged away at “cracking” the US market with the song (despite Because of You already playing the US airwaves) and recorded this blended version in the US with Fil-Am singers Cora and Santos Beloy, publishing it under Dexter Music, Inc. in 1964.

Mike recalled a second, different story which occurred at a later time—1960. That year, popular songbird Joni James came to Manila and performed at the EM Supper Club. She then heard Dahil Sa Iyo. Her manager contacted Mike and made an offer to have exclusive international recording rights to an altered version of the song. James offered a fabulous five-figure sum, but Mike turned it down because Jones wanted to change the title to an English one (fully aware of the existence of the other Because of You). Mike didn’t bite because he didn’t “want to sell/change the identity of the song which we were trying hard to establish. The merits of the song is (sic) its identity.”

Years later, Mike regretted not having accepted Joni James’ very generous offer; he admitted not having enough funds to pursue the pirated version of his song in the US.

A Late-International-Bloomer

So, while the above attempts to formally launch Dahil Sa Iyo in the US market via the backdoor seemed to have gone nowhere, the song continued to take a life of its own, attracting other international (i.e., American) pop singers of the day via the Araneta Coliseum (as it was originally known). The Coliseum opened in 1960 and it booked a heavy line-up of international/US performing artists. One of these early imports was Nat King Cole who came in 1961. Like Joni James, the velvet-voiced crooner instantly fell in love with Dahil sa Iyo when he first heard it and performed it for Manila audiences in Tagalog, learning the new language by rote. He then went on to record it as well, in Manila:

• Nat King Cole singing a beautiful Filipino love song "Dahil Sa'yo"

• Two years later, Araneta presented Jerry Vale, another popular crooner of the era, by which time, Mike Velarde apparently bit the bullet and allowed Vale to record another “Anglicized” version of the song, Your Love is Mine, with “Mike Velarde, Jr.” properly taking credit as the composer and Sonny Burke as the English lyrics adapter. (So, one Velarde at least got proper royalties on this one.)

Jerry Vale’s version: Your Love Is Mine

• And then somewhere in there, The Lettermen added the Filipino favorite to their repertoire – and of the non-Filipino-speaking artists, seemed most comfortable with the Tagalog sounds.

• In 1966, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos came to power, and the song gained even greater international traction with the jet-setting Imelda pulling it out of her pompadour coiffure whenever there was a piano and a captive audience present in all her travels. And whether she sang it in exclusive salon settings or in political rallies, since those were not commercial events, no monies were exchanged, hence the Velardes could not have been entitled to any royalties.

In the early Martial Law days of 1973-74, still another chapter in Dahil Sa Iyo’s history was added. A rising Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias entered Manila socialite Isabel Preysler’s life and adding Dahil Sa Iyo as part of his wooing arsenal. It’s quite a smarmy version.

A young Isabel Preysler of Manila and Julio Iglesias in the early 1970s. This courting period was when Iglesias recorded *Dahil Sa Iyo* appropriately for his then-new Filipina partner.

• So, some 30 years after its debut, the sentimental, romantic Filipino ballad spread its wings, adding Chinese, Japanese and a belated Spanish version, Solo Por Ti, here sung by Fil-Hispano scholar, Guillermo Gomez-Rivera.

How did the Copycat ‘Because of You’ Get Away with it?

The big question persists in my mind: how could Mike Velarde not have sued Hammerstein and Wilkinson for copyright infringement of his father’s seminal work? Possible reasons:

1. The Velardes weren’t just cut out to be cut-throat businessmen?

2. Might the Velardes not have found the right lawyers in the US to represent them “on spec”? If so, could they not have afforded even early retainer fees, just to get the case started? If the Internet had been around in the 1950s, then instant trans-Pacific communications that was needed to give the case legal impetus and identity might’ve favored the Velardes.

3. Could the Statute of Limitations (SoL) already have expired? Not if the original creators were still alive. However, it is quite strange that even as late as the early 1960s, Mike, Jr.’s Hollywood contacts appear not to have put him in touch with the right copyright lawyers in the US—or at least those whose services he could afford.

4. Finally, proper maintenance and sharing of credit among the original creators—and this is where it might have gotten dicey. While Miguel (Sr.) was within his rights to pass on royalty sums to his son, Mike Jr., copyright law does not allow the passing of authorship to the next generation. Plus, the fact that father and son conflated their personalities into one (with Mike dropping “Jr,” in the late 1950s) might have muddied their proper ownership of the song as viewed by US courts.

Further, what about the original lyricist Dominador Santiago? How did his rights fare in the scheme of things? Why has he been all but forgotten in recalling the post-WWII authorship of the song? Had the Velardes bought him out? Or was Santiago simply shunted aside as the song got more international exposure? If playing catch-up on more Velarde bio-information was fruitless, it was even more frustrating and empty-handed with regard to Santiago

End of Copyright Days

Because of recent (although more generous) copyright laws, Dahil Sa Iyo, in US’ legal eyes, has fallen into the public domain. If the Commonwealth copyright date of 1938 is recognized, then that copyright would have lapsed in 2008 – whereas the pretender song, Because of You (© 1940), because Arthur Hammerstein died in 1955 (Wilkinson’s date of death is unknown), and his family has a whole, savvy, licensing machine behind them (the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, now Concord Theatricals) to execute the grunt legal work, Arthur’s copyright has probably been extended to next year, 2025.

Until FILSCAP, the Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, was established in 1965, and heirs of the Velardes, if any, have not been reached, it is not known how they collected their royalties nor how much. But the Velardes did not die rich men; it is not known how lyricist Santiago fared at all. Thus, sadly ends the tale of that iconic Filipino romantic ballad, Dahil Sa Iyo. Yeah, it’s not always a “happy ending” no matter how beautiful the music may be.

More about “Dahil sa Iyo” https://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/2013/5/more-reasons-to-love-dahil-sa-iyo

SOURCES:

Thanks to Prof. George Gemora Hernandez.

Dahil sa Iyo - Wikipedia

Song composer (slideshare.net)

The Day George Harrison Settled His 'My Sweet Lord' Plagiarism Lawsuit - Cosmic : Cosmic (cosmicmagazine.com.au)

The 15 greatest 'stolen' songs of all time (faroutmagazine.co.uk)

George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" Copyright Infringement Case (performingsongwriter.com)

"Dahil Sa Iyo" & "Dedicated To You" 1964 (youtube.com)

Email communications with FILSCAP

Other sources:

The Last Song Tony Bennett Sang Days Before His Death (americansongwriter.com)

The Song That Made Tony Bennett a Star - The Atlantic (July 2023)

Myles A. Garcia is a Correspondent and regular contributor to www.positivelyfilipino.com. He has written three books:

· Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies (latest edition, 2021);

Myles is also a member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, contributing to the ISOH Journal, and pursuing dramatic writing lately. For any enquiries: razor323@gmail.com

More articles from Myles A. Garcia

The Magazine

The Sad Secrets and Fate of ‘Dahil Sa Iyo’