Origins: Shave and a Haircut

Subject: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: voyager
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 04:49 PM

Listening to Crary & Gambetta on FREEBORN MAN (from the Synergia CD)
the stock phrase, "We'll finish this with a Shave and a Haircut" pops up.

What's the origin of this expression & how many dozens of ways can this be applied (muscially that is)?

voyager
"Looking to clean up his act"

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 05:48 PM

Hi, Voyager -
A good place for answers to questions like that is Fuld's The Book of World-Famous Music:

Shave and a Haircut, Bay Rum

Although probably considerably older, this musical phrase is first suggested in print in H. A. Fischler, Hot Scotch Rag
Shave and a Haircut was recorded as a folk melody in 1939 by Rosalind Rosenthal and Herbert Halpert; LC (Music Division—Recording Laboratory, 3646 B4). Unfortunately, the condition of the record does not presently permit verification of the music and words.

Music and words similar to the common music and words appear in the song Shave and a Haircut—Shampoo, published Aug. 3, 1939, by Larry Spier, Inc., 1619 Broadway, New York, N.Y., with music and words by Dan Shapiro, Lester Lee and Milton Berle; JF. The musical phrase also appears in the last three bars of Gee, Officer Krupke in the piano-vocal score of Leonard Bernstein's ,i>West Side Story (1959), p. 178; LC(CDC) and JF (Gee, Officer Krupke, Krup You!).

The musical phrase is also known by other titles and words, and the rhythm alone is frequently tapped or otherwise sounded.

This page (click) has a MIDI and gives an earlier date:

The first recorded occurrence of the tune (with no lyrics) is in an 1899 song by Charles Hale, called "At a Darktown Cakewalk." In 1914, Jimmie Monaco and Joe McCarthy released a song called "Bum-Diddle-De-Um-Bum, That's It!" in which that line was featured in the last two bars of the song. In 1939, the same musical phrase was used in a tune called "Shave and a Haircut - Shampoo" by Dan Shapiro, Lester Lee, and Milton Berle. Somewhere along the line the phrase permutated into "shave and a haircut, bay rum."

When it got to be "two bits" (25 cents) is a mystery. I think haircuts were fifty cents when I got my brushcuts in John the Barber's basement in Detroit in the mid-1950's.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: masato sakurai
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:02 PM

X:1
T:Shave and a Haircut, Bay Rum
M:C
L:1/4
Q:1/4=120
K:C
c (3(G/^F/)G/ _A G|z [BGF] [c2G2E2]|]
w:Shave and_ a hair-cut, bay rum.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: beetle cat
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:08 PM

It used to be custom, for our conductor, at the end of practice, to give the call "shave and a hair cut" to which the chorus would reply, "two bits". This signified that we could slouch, make noise, take our eyes off her nose, pack up and leave.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 10:51 PM

Joke......At the end of a symphony the orchestra conductor said
I don't know who did it, but we will NOT be adding 'shave and a hair cut!!!'

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: mack/misophist
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:02 AM

Some years ago the newspaper carried a storey about a man in Italy who was sued by an elderly neighbor for teaching his parrot to whistle the "Shave $ Haircut" tune. In Italian the words mean "Kill the old woman, with gas."

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: oombanjo
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 02:51 PM

With the other sh-- thrown in, (He doesn't know if he wants a sh-- ,shave or a hair cut) He has usually over indulged, and three sheets to the wind.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Cool Beans
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:14 PM

And Lambert, Hendricks and Ross sang it on "Cloudburst" as:
"That's when the old gray -- cloud burst."

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:27 PM

Sung by the whorehouse -- quartet.
Have you got a hardon? Not yet.
Are you gonna get one? You bet.
Our balls hang low.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: oombanjo
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 01:34 PM

like it

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 11:14 AM

Carrying on from Joe_F's last comment, it can also be heard as an interjected chorus in the (Rugby) song "Old King Cole"

"How's your father?", "Alright"
"How's your mother?", "Half tight"
"How's your sister?", "She might"
"When was the last time?", "Last night"
"When's the next time?", "Tonight"
Oompa oompa stick it up your jumper,

Old king Cole was a bugger for his hole....

CHEERS

Nigel

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 10:59 AM

In Dublin: "How is your oul' one? Game ball." [trans: "how is your mother? fine."]

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Louie Roy
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 11:22 AM

When I first heard the phraze shave and a haircut it was shave and a haircut 6 bits this was long before 1950 Joe

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 01:36 PM

FYI, perhaps this is not what you were thinking of, but the phrase "Shave and a hair cut. Two bits" is associated with the "Hambone" beat which is actually the [or one] African "pattin Juba" beat. This beat is also called "the Bo Diddley beat".

See this excerpt:
He [Bo Diddley}is best known for the "Bo Diddley beat", a rhumba-based beat (see clave) also influenced by what is known as "hambone", a style used by street performers who play out the beat by slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks while chanting rhymes. The Bo Diddley beat is often illustrated with the phrase: "shave 'n' a haircut - two bits".

The beat has been used by many other artists, notable Johnny Otis on "Willie and the Hand Jive", which is more about hambone than it is a direct copy of Bo Diddley, and Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" as well as more obscure numbers such as "Callin' All Cows" by the Blues Rockers.

end of quote.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 01:40 PM

Sorry, that quote was from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

I don't know how to do the blue clicky...

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 01:40 PM

Wilipedia Quote

Nigel
(Clickies on request)

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Hrothgar
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 05:44 AM

Ducks in the long grass - pea soup!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: GUEST,Guest Tom W
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 09:31 PM

Skunk in a rat hole ,Tight fit.

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 09:39 PM

Nigel made the clickie-thank you!

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: GUEST,rhythm anorak
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 01:43 PM

its a cumbia.

its a cuban rhythm i think

It is known as cumbia 3:2 in percussive circles

How old is a cumbia?

Subject: RE: Origins: Shave and a Haircut
From: GUEST,Johnny B Bad
Date: 25 Aug 15 - 03:04 PM

SKUNK IN A RAT HOLE! TIGHT FIT