Daisy Bell

"Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built For Two)"
"Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built For Two)"
Song by Edward M. Favor
Released	1892
Genre	Music hall, standard
Songwriter	Harry Dacre

"Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)" is a song written in 1892 by British songwriter Harry Dacre with the 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 by the IBM 7090 in 1961.

History

"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.

Daisy Bell

Sung by Edward M. Favor. Recorded by the Edison Phonograph Company on brown wax cylinder in 1894

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There is a flower within my heart, Daisy, Daisy!
Planted one day by a glancing dart,
Planted by Daisy Bell!
Whether she loves me or loves me not,
Sometimes it's hard to tell;
Yet I am longing to share the lot
Of beautiful Daisy Bell!

Chorus:
Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer, do!
I'm half crazy,
All for the love of you!
It won't be a stylish marriage,
I can't afford a carriage,
But you'll look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two!

We will go "tandem" as man and wife, Daisy, Daisy!
"Pedaling" away down the road of life,
I and my Daisy Bell!
When the road's dark we can both despise
Policeman and "lamps" as well;
There are "bright lights" in the dazzling eyes
Of beautiful Daisy Bell!
(Chorus)

I will stand by you in "wheel" or woe, Daisy, Daisy!
You'll be the bell(e) which I'll ring you know!
Sweet little Daisy Bell!
You'll take the "lead" in each "trip" we take,
Then if I don't do well;
I will permit you to use the brake,
My beautiful Daisy Bell!
(Chorus)

In technology and popular culture

Computing and technology

"Daisy Bell" sung by the DECtalk speech synthesizer released in 1984

In 1961, an IBM 7090 at Bell Labs was programmed to sing "Daisy Bell". This was one of the earliest demonstrations of computer speech synthesis. This recording has been included in the United States National Recording Registry.
In 1974, auditory researchers used the melody of "Daisy Bell" for the first demonstration of "pure dichotic" (two-ear only) perception: they encoded the melody in a stereophonic signal in such a way that it could be perceived when listening with both ears but not with either ear alone.
In 1975, Steve Dompier, member of Homebrew Computer Club, programmed an Altair 8800 computer to play "Daisy Bell" as AM radio interference.
In 1985, Christopher C. Capon created a Commodore 64 program named "Sing Song Serenade", which caused the Commodore 1541 floppy disk drive to emit the tune of "Daisy Bell" directly from its hardware by rapidly moving the read/write head.
In 1999, a piece of computer software called BonziBuddy sang "Daisy Bell" if the user asked it to sing.
Microsoft's discontinued personal assistant Cortana would sometimes sing the first line of "Daisy Bell" when asked to sing a song.
Amazon Alexa can sing "Daisy Bell" when asked to sing a song.

Drama, film, and television

Science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke witnessed the IBM 7090 demonstration during a trip to Bell Labs in 1962 and referred to it in the 1968 novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the HAL 9000 computer sings "Daisy Bell" during its gradual deactivation.
The song is sung repeatedly in Stewart Parker and Jimmy Kennedy's play Spokesong (1975); a work which was staged in London's West End in 1977 and on Broadway in 1979.
In the Futurama episode "Love and Rocket" (2002), Bender sings "Daisy Bell" to the Planet Express Ship when he falls in love with it. The episode contains several references to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Musical recordings

Dan W. Quinn produced a wax cylinder recording of "Daisy Bell" in 1893, the first recorded rendition of the song.
Singer Dinah Shore recorded a version of the song for Bluebird Records in 1941.
Singer Nat King Cole produced a recording of "Daisy Bell" as part of his Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer LP for Capitol Records in 1961.
On 3 May 2014, an album was released composed entirely of covers of "Daisy Bell" entitled The Gay Nineties Old Tyme Music: Daisy Bell, in conjunction with Mark Ryden's exhibit "The Gay 90s". The album features covers of "Daisy Bell" by Katy Perry, Tyler, the Creator, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Nick Cave, Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, Wall of Voodoo's Stan Ridgway, Danny Elfman, and others. Profits from the album went to the nonprofit Little Kids Rock.

Radio

The tune was played as the lead-in to Aunt Daisy's radio broadcasts in New Zealand, which ran from 1930 until her death in 1963.

References

↑ Carroll, Leslie (3 June 2008). "Edward VII and Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick 1861–1938". Royal Affairs: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-451-22398-2.
↑ "Local history: The socialist socialite". BBC. 22 May 2009.
↑ "Bell Labs: Background: Bell Labs Text-to-Speech Synthesis: Then and Now". www.bell-labs.com. Archived from the original on 7 August 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2026.
↑ Ewen, David (1966). American Popular Songs. Random House. ISBN 0-394-41705-4.
↑ Whitburn, Joel (1986). Pop Memories 1890–1954. Record Research. ISBN 0-89820-083-0.
↑
- Krapp, Peter (2024). Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation. MIT Press. pp. 77–78, 84. ISBN 9780262380881. OCLC 1422806352. The perennial media-historical hit 'Daisy Bell'...since 1892, from Alexander Graham Bell's phone demo to Donald Duck in 1950 and on to the first IBM 7090 singing lessons in 1961 at Bell Labs in New Jersey, famous since Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)... In Mathews's cover version, it also appears on the [1962] LP Music from Mathematics, as its liner notes point out: The patterns of human speech are analyzed in the same manner as the instrumental sounds. The computer is then programmed to speak the desired words. On this band the computer not only was programmed to sing but also to simulate a Honky Tonky type of piano accompaniment that was popular during the era when this song was a hit.
- "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)". Library of Congress. Retrieved 3 March 2024.
- Bannister, Charlie (10 May 1961). "Sounds of Speech – And They're a Card". Philadelphia Daily News. p. 50.
- "Robot talks, sings". The Sydney Morning Herald. Australian Associated Press. 18 June 1961. p. 25.
↑ Kubovy, M.; Cutting, J. E.; McGuire, R. M. (1974). "Hearing with the Third Ear: Dichotic Perception of a Melody without Monaural Familiarity Cues". Science. 186 (4160): 272–274. Bibcode:1974Sci...186..272K. doi:10.1126/science.186.4160.272. PMID 4413641. S2CID 8867839.
↑ "Play 'Daisy (Bicycle Built for Two)'". 30 May 2017.
↑ "[CSDb] – Sing Song Serenade by Christopher C. Capon (1985)". Commodore 64 Scene Database. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
↑ O'Dell, Cary. ""Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)"" (PDF). loc.gov. Library of Congress. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
↑ Martin, Jim. "Amaze your friends with these 45 funny Cortana responses on Windows 10". Tech Advisor. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
↑ Kay (10 July 2022). "Alexa, sing a song! A Musical World Trip with 518 Alexa Songs". smartenlight. Retrieved 10 October 2025.
↑ "Background: Bell Labs Text-to-Speech Synthesis". bell-labs.com. Lucent Technologies. March 1997. Archived from the original on 7 April 2000.
↑ Dietz, Dan (2015). "Spokesong, or The Common Wheel". The Complete Book of 1970s Broadway Musicals. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 438–439. ISBN 9781442251663.
↑ Cohen, David X. (2003). Futurama season four DVD commentary for the episode "Love and Rocket" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
↑ Williams, Maxwell (2 May 2014). "Katy Perry Featured on Pop Artist Mark Ryden's $100 Gay Nineties Album (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
↑ "Basham, Maud Ruby – Biography". Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 7 October 2017.

External links

Media related to Daisy Bell at Wikimedia Commons
Daisy Bell: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
Page featuring a recording of "Daisy Bell" sung and played by IBM computers at Bell Laboratories in the early 1960s (see last track on side 2 labeled "Synthesized computer speech demonstration (1963)")
"Daisy Bell. Song. (Levy Sheet Music Collection, Box 140, Item 090)". Johns Hopkins Libraries. 30 March 2007. Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2026.

[1] Carroll, Leslie (3 June 2008). "Edward VII and Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick 1861–1938". Royal Affairs: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-451-22398-2.

[2] "Local history: The socialist socialite". BBC. 22 May 2009.

[3] "Bell Labs: Background: Bell Labs Text-to-Speech Synthesis: Then and Now". www.bell-labs.com. Archived from the original on 7 August 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2026.

[4] Ewen, David (1966). American Popular Songs. Random House. ISBN 0-394-41705-4.

[5] Whitburn, Joel (1986). Pop Memories 1890–1954. Record Research. ISBN 0-89820-083-0.

[6] 
Krapp, Peter (2024). Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation. MIT Press. pp. 77–78, 84. ISBN 9780262380881. OCLC 1422806352. The perennial media-historical hit 'Daisy Bell'...since 1892, from Alexander Graham Bell's phone demo to Donald Duck in 1950 and on to the first IBM 7090 singing lessons in 1961 at Bell Labs in New Jersey, famous since Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)... In Mathews's cover version, it also appears on the [1962] LP Music from Mathematics, as its liner notes point out: The patterns of human speech are analyzed in the same manner as the instrumental sounds. The computer is then programmed to speak the desired words. On this band the computer not only was programmed to sing but also to simulate a Honky Tonky type of piano accompaniment that was popular during the era when this song was a hit.
"Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)". Library of Congress. Retrieved 3 March 2024.
Bannister, Charlie (10 May 1961). "Sounds of Speech – And They're a Card". Philadelphia Daily News. p. 50.
"Robot talks, sings". The Sydney Morning Herald. Australian Associated Press. 18 June 1961. p. 25.

[mwARs] Krapp, Peter (2024). Computing Legacies: Digital Cultures of Simulation. MIT Press. pp. 77–78, 84. ISBN 9780262380881. OCLC 1422806352. The perennial media-historical hit 'Daisy Bell'...since 1892, from Alexander Graham Bell's phone demo to Donald Duck in 1950 and on to the first IBM 7090 singing lessons in 1961 at Bell Labs in New Jersey, famous since Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)... In Mathews's cover version, it also appears on the [1962] LP Music from Mathematics, as its liner notes point out: The patterns of human speech are analyzed in the same manner as the instrumental sounds. The computer is then programmed to speak the desired words. On this band the computer not only was programmed to sing but also to simulate a Honky Tonky type of piano accompaniment that was popular during the era when this song was a hit.

[mwAS8] "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)". Library of Congress. Retrieved 3 March 2024.

[mwATc] Bannister, Charlie (10 May 1961). "Sounds of Speech – And They're a Card". Philadelphia Daily News. p. 50.

[mwAT8] "Robot talks, sings". The Sydney Morning Herald. Australian Associated Press. 18 June 1961. p. 25.

[7] Kubovy, M.; Cutting, J. E.; McGuire, R. M. (1974). "Hearing with the Third Ear: Dichotic Perception of a Melody without Monaural Familiarity Cues". Science. 186 (4160): 272–274. Bibcode:1974Sci...186..272K. doi:10.1126/science.186.4160.272. PMID 4413641. S2CID 8867839.

[8] "Play 'Daisy (Bicycle Built for Two)'". 30 May 2017.

[9] "[CSDb] – Sing Song Serenade by Christopher C. Capon (1985)". Commodore 64 Scene Database. Retrieved 22 November 2015.

[bonzi-10] O'Dell, Cary. ""Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)"" (PDF). loc.gov. Library of Congress. Retrieved 4 August 2019.

[11] Martin, Jim. "Amaze your friends with these 45 funny Cortana responses on Windows 10". Tech Advisor. Retrieved 4 November 2019.

[12] Kay (10 July 2022). "Alexa, sing a song! A Musical World Trip with 518 Alexa Songs". smartenlight. Retrieved 10 October 2025.

[Background:_Bell_Labs_Text-to-Speech_Synthesis-13] "Background: Bell Labs Text-to-Speech Synthesis". bell-labs.com. Lucent Technologies. March 1997. Archived from the original on 7 April 2000.

[14] Dietz, Dan (2015). "Spokesong, or The Common Wheel". The Complete Book of 1970s Broadway Musicals. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 438–439. ISBN 9781442251663.

[Cohen_commentary-15] Cohen, David X. (2003). Futurama season four DVD commentary for the episode "Love and Rocket" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.

[16] Williams, Maxwell (2 May 2014). "Katy Perry Featured on Pop Artist Mark Ryden's $100 Gay Nineties Album (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 20 January 2017.

[17] "Basham, Maud Ruby – Biography". Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 7 October 2017.