|
|
|
|
|
Daisy BellDaisy Bell is a popular song whose opening words ("Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer true") and closing words ("...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 decide 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 Brooke, 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. Memorable performances of Daisy Bell have included an arrangement by Max Mathews and by Hal in 2001 A Space Odyssey.
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|