Bicycle Built for Two (Daisy Bell)

DESCRIPTION: The singer describes his love for Daisy Bell. His poverty being what it is, he cannot offer a fancy wedding or carriage, but proposes they ride a "bicycle built for two." In the original, she accepts
AUTHOR: Harry Dacre (1857?-1922)
EARLIEST DATE: 1892 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: love marriage technology
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Gilbert-LostChords, p. 255, "(Daisy Bell)" (1 partial text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 247, "A Bicycle Built for Two (Daisy Bell)" (1 text)
Geller-FamousSongsAndTheirStories, pp. 100-102, "Daisy Bell" (1 text, 1 tune)
Messerli-ListenToTheMockingbird, pp. 208-210, "Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)" (1 text)
Fuld, pp. 188-189+, "Daisy Bell -- (A Bicycle Built for Two)"
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 315, "Bicycle Built for Two" (notes only)
Pegler-SoldiersSongsAndSlangoftheGreatWar, pp. 215-216, "Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)" (1 text)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, posts 102, 103, 104, "Bicycle Built for Two" (1 mention from user Tess_W, with a verse from John5918 and the parody verse from Crypto-Willobie, all posted September 24, 2021)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "Daisy Bell"
DT, DAISYBEL* (DAISYBL2* -- containing many sundry parodies)
ADDITIONAL: Robert A. Fremont, editor, _Favorite Songs of the Nineties_, Dover Publications, 1973, pp. 64-69, "Daisy Bell" (1 text, 1 tune, a print of the sheet music, with the tune shown in tonic sol-fa as well as music notation)
Aline Waites & Robin Hunter, _The Illustrated Victorian Songbook_, Michael Joseph Ltd., 1984, pp. 107-110, "Daisy Bell (1 text, 1 tune, plus a color print of an early sheet music cover)
ST Gil255 (Partial)
Roud #29754
SAME TUNE:
Calliope Song (File: ACSF315C)
Camp Food (File: DPio1505)
Daisy, Daisy, What Do You Think of That? (File: PKKB059C)
Fairey! Fairey! (File: PKMG069A)
NOTES [510 words]: Harry Dacre (formerly "Harry Decker," and probably born under the name "Frank Dean") came from the Isle of Man to Preston, where, in 1882, he decided to try songwriting as a career. He claims to have written 700 songs in his first two years -- but getting sick as a result of the strain, and not making a lot of money. As a result, he moved to Australia for four years, without getting rich. He went back to England, then moved to America.
According to Baker, p. 133, his lyric originally referred to "a donkey-cart made for two." But Americans didn't talk about donkey-carts, so he needed to refer to something else.
One of the things he brought to America was a bicycle, upon which he was forced to pay duty. A friend remarked that it was well it had not been a bicycle built for two (Baker, p. 134). And the popular version of this insipid song was born.
According to Waites & Hunter, no publisher was willing to touch it at first. But a singer named Katie Lawrence picked it up and made it a hit. She also contributed, in a small way, to women's liberation, since she dressed in pants to perform the song -- a woman in long skirts couldn't really operate a bicycle. It didn't bring her long-term success, though; she died in poverty (Baker, p. 134). Dacre did a little better; he had one other modest success with "I'll Be Your Sweetheart," but nothing else he did is particularly well-remembered. And even his "hit" has been basically reduced to a single chorus.
Finson, pp. 144-145, says that this song launched a minor explosion of bicycle songs, most not worth the effort of remembering. He also quotes Edward Marks to the effect that this launched the popularity of waltz songs, although that seems to have had many causes.
I thought it went without saying that the verse "Richard, Richard, here is your answer true, You're half crazy if you think that will do... But I'll be switched If I'll be hitched On a bicycle built for two" is a parody. But I've heard people sing it as part of the actual song. Such are the ways of tradition.
Another parody comes from the pen of none other than Lewis Carroll. In an 1893 letter to Hilda Moberly Bell (the niece of Charles Dodgson's close friend Gertrude Chataway), Dodgson wrote
Hilda! Hilda!
Give me your answer true;
I'm a crazy builder,
All for the love of you.
Dodgson added a verse for Hilda's sister Enid Moberly Bell:
Enid! Enid!
Give me your answer true;
It wasn't Hilda I meaned,
It was only you!
(Source: Carroll/Cohen, pp. 247-248).
And, finally, when Arthur C. Clarke was working on the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, his initial plan was to again kill the computer HAL. Everyone else hated the idea and wanted to save HAL. Lester del Rey wrote this item to help change Clarke's mind:
Arthur, Arthur, give me a chance, please do.
I've been murdered, all for your Volume 2.
Though I hate to cause commotion,
You'll win my deep devotion
If you'll revise my sad demise,
And the story'll be stronger too.
(Source: McAleer, p. 302).
For another song apparently by Harry Dacre, see "Dorothy Dean." - RBW
Bibliography Last updated in version 7.2
File: Gil255

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