Talk:Daisy Bell

Influence of Sarah, Sarah

The Wikimedia Help Desk received an e-mail from a music historian:

I don't know who to send this to, so could you please forward this to whomever should get it.

I am writing about music and I was researching the song "Daisy Bell". Here is the webpage address:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Bell

Anyway, there is a reference towards the bottom of the page concerning a link that displays a London broadside that contains lyrics to a song called "Sarah, Sarah" by Harry Bedford. I mention this because the comment made at the bottom of the Wilipedia article suggests that "Daisy Bell" was inspired by "Sarah, Sarah".

I just wanted to mention that i could find very little on Harry Bedford but there is a CD out with a song by him from the 1920's and that the International Film Database has a movie listing of him. there is nothing in their biography but his birthdate was 1873. This means that he was only 18-19 years old when "Daisy Bell" was a hit. I seriously doubt that he wrote "Sarah, Sarah" before "Daisy Bell" because of his age. Maybe the broadside has a misattributed date or Harry was gifted at humorous lyricism at a very early age.

Thanks . Alan Linquist

He didn't know where to make the comment so I placed it here. Capitalistroadster 03:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand what makes this music historian think that a Harry Bedford in the International Film Database must be the same Harry Bedford that composed "Sarah, Sarah". It's not a particularly uncommon name, after all. Qwfp (talk) 12:40, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Dunlop

Daisy Greville also seems to be the mother of the heir of the Earl of Warwick, in 1882. Her husband died three years after Dunlop, in 1924. No solid citation for this remarriage to John Dunlop anywhere, so I'm calling it a hoax, probably based on a subtle pun that she inspired the song "Daisy Bell/Bicycle Built For Two", and Dunlop invented the bicycle (tricycle) tire. Sentence removed. -- Yamara 02:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Original research?

Can anyone confirm the following?

• 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).

This seems like original research... is there any independent confirmation on this from a reliable source? - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 11:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced material

The following is unsourced information:

• The IBM 704 was not the first computer to play Daisy Bell, as this song was popular on the UNIVAC I. Playback of music was demonstrated in early 1951 on the UNIVAC I at the event celebrating the first operation of the machine.

• "Daisy Bell" is featured in the Commodore 64 demo Broken Limits, which plays out the tune using the Commodore 1541 disk drive mechanics.

• A "Daisy Bell" program called "Daisy" appeared for the Commodore Amiga, which played out the tune using the disk drive mechanics and 'sang' the lyrics using the amiga translator.device

• "Daisy Bell" was also recorded on the single CD "Sunday Sunday" by the English Britpop band Blur in 1993. This version of the song was also memorably performed by the band at the Mile End stadium concert in June 1995 as a duet with Phil Daniels.

• The song was featured in the Futurama episode Love and Rocket in which Bender dates the Planet Express ship and serenades her with the song.

• The third paragraph of the song was hidden as an easter egg in the stylesheet of the Wordpress Default theme. Thus been installed on thousands of servers and blogs, the lyrics are only visible when you edit the stylesheet.

• It was also performed by Captain Hero in an American Idol parody episode of Drawn Together.

• In the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds we hear a Japanese version of the song.

• A character in the Playstation 2 game S.L.A.I. sings it while fighting.

• It was performed briefly on the pilot of the television show, Wonderfalls

• The HERO Jr. educational robot by Heathkit sings the third verse using the Votrax SC-01A speech synthesizer chip common in the 1980s.

While this is interesting, we can't use it unless you provide a source. Also, none of this is really trivia, as trivia by its definition is "unimportant information" - it therefore shouldn't be in a trivia section but instead the information should be incorporated into the main article. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 12:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

References

HAL reference in lead

This has been removed twice now. This is wrong for two reasons:

1. The lead section is supposed to include a summary of all of the article's key points.
2. This is evidence of wider notability of the subject, and so should be included in the lead to demonstrate the subject's importance.

Given that Rodericksilly previously removed the entire piece from the article, my impression here is that this is due to a disagreement over the importance of the particular example. However, in the present article it's plainly the most notable aspect of the song. I'll be re-adding this unless there's reason to disagree. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it deserves a mention in the lead. Qwfp (talk) 14:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I've now restored this mention. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Charting?

"The song was originally recorded and released by Dan W. Quinn in 1893, charting at number-one for nine consecutive weeks."

Um... there were no "charts" of popular songs in 1893. Charting is a phenomena that didn't exist before radio, and wasn't really established until 1951. While there may be ways of ascertaining how popular "Daisy Bell" was in a particular part of the world in 1893, that information didn't come from a pop song chart. This linn needs to be changed, removed, or properly referenced.

Unclear purpose

What is the purpose of this article? Is it supposed to be primarily about the 1890's popular song "Daisy Bell", or is it supposed to be about the development of computer voice synthesis?

I ask because, right now, essentially half the article is about computer voice systhesis. While "Daisy Bell" did figure in the history of this technology, that represents just one minor event in the song's 120+ year history.

What is missing from the article is information on the song's internal puns, which contributed to the fact that it became one of the most parodied songs in the English language. I provided information on these aspects of the song, with references, but they were removed. As I have no desire to become involved in an "edit war", I have not restored them.

However, as the article stands now, I propose that it be either expanded to cover the actual song, or deleted. The computer voice synthesis mention is more than adequately covered in the "Speech Synthesis" article, and the rest of this article is really little more than a stub. -- 23:25, 4 November 2014‎ 74.95.43.249

I reinstated the material on parodies. And I think the "In culture and technology" section is still too detailed for an article on the song. Willondon (talk) 01:11, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for reinstating the sourced material on parodies and added something about the puns in the original song (quote marks seem to indicate intended puns in the original lyrics, though some are no longer clear puns to the modern listener, presumably due to changes in slang usage). I think that section was removed as it had grown to include many later, unreliably-sourced parodies? I've further shortened the "In culture and technology" section, as I think you're right that the detail belongs in articles to which it links, such as "HAL 9000". Qwfp (talk) 08:36, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually, this song would now be semi-forgotten if not for the 2001 movie etc. AnonMoos (talk) 09:18, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know about that. Many still remember contemporary songs like "Down by the Old Mill Stream", many of Stephen Foster's hits, "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain", etc. I'm sure the movie has boosted Daisy Bell's longevity, but when I saw the movie on its initial release, I'm sure most of the audience was already familiar with the song. Willondon (talk) 14:32, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

A few 19th century popular songs are remembered, but the vast majority languish in obscurity... AnonMoos (talk) 16:28, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Well sure, but I thought the issue is whether or not Daisy Bell would have languished in obscurity were it not for 2001. I think it's speculation to assert that it would have, especially given the merits mentioned in the article. Oh well, I guess we'll never know. Willondon (talk) 17:51, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

The song was written just as the bicycle became a practical mode of transportation -- i.e. as the "safety bicycle" was beginning to replace the "penny-farthing" bicycle -- and became lyrically obsolete by about 20 years later, when the automobile began to be widely diffused (in the United States, at least). For the last 75 years or more, it's mainly had camp or kitsch or "Gay Nineties" nostalgia value, and is certainly not one of the few classic popular songs whose appeal and popularity have endured. To see how such obsolete technology fad songs could be viewed only slightly more than 30 years after their initial publication, just listen to the Spike Jones and His City Slickers version of Come Josephine in My Flying Machine... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:16, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

The Theory of Everything

I've tagged The Theory of Everything theory (Daisy Bell appears in the film due to Hal) as original research. It's uncited, and frankly it seems just as likely that the Theory of Everything featured Daisy Bell due to the song's use in the early days of computer-generated audio. 80.229.60.197 (talk) 07:52, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Films section

This probably needs reworking slightly - does the third entry (the Stephen Hawking film) link to '2001 ...' or 'The Hitcher'? Jackiespeel (talk) 17:39, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Parody

FWIW:

I often as a child heard this teasing parody:

[Name of person],

[Name of Person],

The cops are after you!

If they catch you,

They'll give you a year or two.

They'll tie you up with wire

Behind the Black Mariah*,

So ring your bell,

And peddle like hell,

On your bicycle built for two.

Black Mariah = police van — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:44B8:3102:BB00:54F1:8A3D:C10C:8D93 (talk) 19:52, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

References in movies

Bigweld also sings the song when Rodney's fixing him in the Blue Sky film, "Robots". Booger-mike (talk) 21:53, 6 October 2022 (UTC)