Daisy Bell
| "Daisy Bell" | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Song | |
| Released | 1892 |
| Writer(s) | Harry Dacre |
"Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" is a popular song, written in 1892 by Harry Dacre, with the well-known chorus, "Daisy, Daisy / Give me your answer, do. / I'm half crazy / all for the love of you", ending with the words, "a bicycle built for two".
The song is said to have been inspired by Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, one of the many mistresses of King Edward VII.
It is the earliest song sung using computer speech synthesis, as later referenced in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
"Daisy Bell" was composed by Harry Dacre in 1892. As David Ewen writes in American Popular Songs:
When Dacre, an English popular composer, first came to the United States, he brought with him a bicycle, for which he was charged import duty. His friend William Jerome, another songwriter, remarked lightly: "It's lucky you didn't bring a bicycle built for two, otherwise you'd have to pay double duty." Dacre was so taken with the phrase "bicycle built for two" that he soon used it in a song. That song, Daisy Bell, first became successful in a London music hall, in a performance by Katie Lawrence. Tony Pastor was the first to sing it in the United States. Its success in America began when Jennie Lindsay brought down the house with it at the Atlantic Gardens on the Bowery early in 1892.
The song was originally recorded and released by Dan W. Quinn in 1893.
Even in original form this light-hearted song contains several puns ("tandem" as describing both a tandem bicycle and matrimony, bell/belle, weal/wheel, etc.), and almost from the beginning the song lent itself to parody and satire, with a great number of additional verses having been penned, ranging from the mildly humorous to the outright obscene. For example, the same year the song was published, an "answer" chorus appeared:
Michael, Michael, here is my answer true
You're half crazy if you think that that will do
If you can't afford a carriage
There won't be any marriage
Cause I'll be switched if I'll get hitched
On a bicycle built for two
...
Wikipedia