Shave and a Haircut
specific 7-note rhythm and melody
"Shave and a Haircut" and the associated response "two bits" is a seven-note musical call-and-response couplet, riff or fanfare popularly used at the end of a musical performance, usually for comedic effect. It is used melodically (both in a minor or major key) or rhythmically, for example as a door knocker.
"Two bits" is a term in the United States and Canada for 25 cents, equivalent to a U.S. quarter. "Four bits" and "six bits" are also occasionally used, for example in the cheer "Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar." In the UK, it was often said as "five bob" (slang for five shillings), although words are now rarely used to accompany the rhythm or the tune.
History
An early occurrence of the tune is from the introduction of the 1899 Charles Hale minstrel song "At a Darktown Cake Walk". Other songs from the same period also used the tune. The same notes form the bridge in the "Hot Scotch Rag", written by H. A. Fischler in 1911.
An early recording used the seven-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".
The tune features in part of the instrumental accompaniment to the 1925 Buster Keaton film Battling Butler. The tune is repeated multiple times from 23 minutes and 22 seconds until 23 minutes and 55 seconds.
The public source identifies “Shave and a Haircut” as specific 7-note rhythm and melody. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Shave, Haircut and specific.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q938427. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1911, 1915 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shave and a Haircut” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.