Daisy Bell
"Daisy Bell" is a popular song whose famous lines ("Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer do...I'm half crazy, all for the love of you..." as well as the line "...a bicycle built for two") are considerably better known than the song's actual title.
"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 duty. His friend (the songwriter
William Jerome) 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 decided to use it in a song. That song, Daisy Bell, first became successful in a London music hall, in a performance by Kate Lawrence. Tony Pastor was the first one 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."
It is said that a real Daisy inspired the song: "Daisy" the
Countess of Warwick,
Frances Evelyn Maynard, one of the wealthiest and most desirable English women of the period. In her lifetime, she became a vegetarian, championed women's education, and stood as a
Labour (leftist/socialist) candidate. At one point, she was mistress of the
Prince of Wales (subsequently
Edward VII, king of England,
1901–
10). She eventually married
John Boyd Dunlop, founder of the
Dunlop rubber company.
The song is possibly derived from 'Sarah Sarah, or a Donkey Cart Built for two' by Harry Bedford, printed sometime between 1877 and 1884, however the dates are uncertain and the reverse is possible. A broadside copy can be viewed on the Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads site. (Viewable by clicking on the magnifying glass and scrolling down to read it).
SarahMemorable performances of "Daisy Bell" have included an arrangement by
Max Mathews programmed on an
IBM 704 which inspired an
a cappella solo by
Douglas Rain as
HAL 9000 in
2001: A Space Odyssey. The background behind this inspired choice goes all the way back to 1962 when physicist
John Larry Kelly, Jr created one of the most famous moments in the history of
Bell Labs by using an
IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer
vocoder recreated the song "Daisy Bell", with Max Mathews providing the musical accompaniment.
Arthur C. Clarke of
2001: A Space Odyssey fame was coincidentally visiting friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility at the time of this remarkable
speech synthesis demonstration and was so impressed that he used it in the climactic scene of his novel and screenplay for
2001: A Space Odyssey,
[Arthur C. Clarke online Biography] where the
HAL 9000 computer sings the same song as he is being "put to sleep" by astronaut
Dave Bowman.
[Bell Labs: Where "HAL" First Spoke (Bell Labs Speech Synthesis website)] The HAL performance made the "Daisy, Daisy" lines a part of
popular culture.
*
Lyrics with .midi on National Institutes of Health website*
IBM 7094 singing Daisy Bell (MP3)*
IBM 7094 in Real Audio & associated info*
The Daisy Bell Page (compiled by Chris Komuves)
*
Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two) - Harry Dacre (Lyrics and Chords)*
Works of Edward M. Favor, including an
1894 recording of "Daisy Bell" (MP3)
&id=26001a.gif:26001b.gif:26001c.gif:26001d.gif:26001e.gif:26001f.gif:26001g.gif:26001h.gif&seq=5&size=1|Sarah){kind=link}