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Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)

from Songs our grandparents would have known by Ken Baake

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about

This is a song everyone has heard. The melody is infectious, the words brimming with a delightful innocence. It was first published in 1892 at the height of the bicycle craze. According to Theodore Raph's songbook,__ The Songs We Sang__ (1964), when the Dasy Bell was written about one in seven Americans had a bicycle. Some liberal church pastors even allowed bicycling on the Sabbath, a ways of "taking in an invigorating spin" while tuning one's heart to goodness. The author Harry Dacre was English, but he brought the song with him when he migrated to the United States. But if took an American singer visiting Britain to launch the song into popular recognition, after which it found a New York publisher.

The lyrics are about romance on a tandem bike. (That beats Internet dating today, I would think). :-) This was one of the most well known songs of the Gilded Age, the "Gay Nineties

lyrics

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

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do
I'm half crazy all for the love of you
It won't be a stylish marraige
I can't afford the carriage
But you'd look sweet on the seat
Of a bicycle built for two

We will go tandem as man and wife
Daisy, Daisy
Peddling our way down the road of life
I and my Daisy Bell
When the roads and we both dispise
P'licemen and lamps as well.
There are bright lights in the dazzling eyes
Of beautiful Daisy Bell.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do
I'm half crazy all for the love of you
It won't be a stylish marraige
I can't afford the carriage
But you'd look sweet on the seat
Of a bicycle built for two

I will stand by you in wheel or woe
Daisy, Daisy,
You'll be the bell which I'll ring you know
Sweet little Daisy Bell
You'll take the lead on each trip we take
Then if I don't do well
I will permit you to use the brake
Beautiful Daisy Bell

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do
I'm half crazy all for the love of you
It won't be a stylish marraige
I can't afford the carriage
But you'd look sweet on the seat
Of a bicycle built for two

But you'd look sweet on the seat
Of a bicycle built for two
Of a bicycle built for two
Of a bicycle built for two
For two, For two, For two, For two

credits

from Songs our grandparents would have known, track released January 7, 2016
Ken, vocals and guitar
Recorded at Crossroads Recording Studio, Texas Tech
Amy Devoge producer/engineer

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about

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Ken Baake Lubbock, Texas

Ken was born in Baltimore in 1955. He grew up hearing everyone from Johnny Mercer and Ray Charles to the Beatles on the family hi-fi, with a usual Saturday encore of Wagner's operas. Ken has degrees in English and economics and a background in journalism. He is currently an associate professor of English at Texas Tech, teaching classes in rhetoric. ... more

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