Shave and a Haircut

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Sheet music for Shave and a Haircut.

Shave and a Haircut, and the associated response, "two bits", is a simple (7 or 8 note) musical couplet sometimes used at the end of a musical performance (or, much less often, at the beginning). The seven-note variant could be considered the world's shortest complete song, having an introduction (one note), a question (two notes), a response (two more notes), and a conclusion (the final two notes).

The first known occurrence of the tune is from an 1899 Charles Hale song, "At a Darktown Cakewalk." Other songs from the same period also used the tune. In 1939, Dan Shapiro, Lestor Lee and Milton Berle released "Shave and a Haircut—Shampoo" which featured the tune in the closing bars, and is thought to be the origin of the lyrics. Over time the phrase has permutated through several variations. (For example, the A-flat is often replaced by an A-natural.)

The tune is associated with a profane insult in Mexico. Whistling the tune or using a car horn to play it is considered highly offensive.^{[citation needed]} The insult is "Chinga tu madre, cabrón" (where cabrón represents the final two notes, and can be used as a response), which can be translated as "Go fuck your mother, you bastard."

[edit] References

The tune has been used as a "wrap-up" countless times on numbers performed through the years - to the point where that knowledge could be assumed, such as the Far Side cartoon, in which a conductor tells the orchestra: "All right, I don't know who's doing it, but in the concert we will NOT be concluding the symphony with Shave and a Haircut!"

The tune is strongly associated with the stringed instruments of bluegrass music, particularly the 5-string banjo. Earl Scruggs often ended a song with this phrase or a variation of it.

A few notable examples include:

There are either 7 or 8 notes, depending on whether the 3rd note, the F-sharp, is used. When it is used, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th notes become a triplet, as in the West Side Story example below. Also included are the notes based on the sheet music shown above:

7 6 6 -6B 6 | R -7 567 R

C G G Ab G | R B C R

"Shave and a hair-cut, two bits"

7 6 -5# 6 -6B 6 | R -7 567 R

C G F# G Ab G | R B C R

"Gee, Off-i-cer Krup-ke, Krup you!" (from West Side Story)

"Shave and a Haircut" featured in many early cartoons, played on things varying from car horns to window shutters banging in the wind. Decades later, the couplet became a plot device in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the idea being that Toons cannot resist obeying cartoon conventions. Judge Doom uses this to lure Roger Rabbit out of hiding at the Terminal Bar by circling the room and tapping out the five beats on the walls.

On the Smothers Brothers album Curb your tongue, knave! the first track on the A side is Church Bells in which the brothers reminisce about the bells of three different churches rang at night in their hometown. The song ends with the bells ringing in succession the familiar "shave and a haircut, two bits."

Nardwuar the Human Serviette ends each interview with a spoken tune of "doot doola doot doo..." to which the interviewee must respond with the final "doot doo!" before Nardwuar will let them go.

In an episode of M*A*S*H, Radar was talking to Hawkeye as he was finishing up his shave. Hawkeye sang the phrase: "Figaro, Figaro, Figarooooooooo . . . Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits." Radar, who didn't realize Hawkeye just added that ending to be funny, said: "Oh! So that's where that comes from!"

In the film What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Gilbert sings the tune to his mentally handicapped brother to calm him down, using the words, "Match in the gas tank" (to which his brother replies, "Boom boom").

On The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson the band would end the nightly playing of the opening theme song (written by Paul Anka) with the "Shave and a Haircut" tune.

An early recording used the 7-note tune at both the beginning and the ending of a humorous 1915 song, by Billy Murray and the American Quartet, called "On the 5:15".

Dave Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance" not only incorporates the phrase into the song's unorthodox 7/8 time signature, but includes a little musical twist by inserting it twice in rapid succession, taking advantage of the fact that it begins and ends on the same note.

Les Paul and Mary Ford's Capitol recording of "Magic Melody" concluded with the phrase minus the last two notes ("two bits"). Responding to complaints from disc jockeys, Capitol in 1955 released "Magic Melody Part 2"—consisting solely of the missing notes—on a 45, said to be the shortest tune on record.[1]

Although the Bo Diddley beat is frequently compared to "shave and a haircut", in fact the Bo Diddley beat is based on the superficially similar clave beat characteristic of Latin American music.

Ugly Kid Joe's hit single "Everything About You" ends with it (in the key of A major)

Former Prisoner of War and U.S. Naval Seaman Doug Hegdahl reports fellow American captives in the Vietnam war would authenticate a new prisoner's American identity by tapping the first 5 notes of "Shave and a Haircut," against a cell wall, waiting for the appropriate response. American POW's were then able to communicate securely with one another via the quadratic alphabet code.[2]