Beat the Band

September 8th, 2010 by admin

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Posted in columns, September-October 2012 | 11 comments

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11 comments on this post.

  1. David Evans:

    December 25th, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    I found a 1854 use of the phrase “to beat the band” in The Yale Literary Magazine
    http://books.google.com/books?id=b1ZOAAAAYAAJ&q=%22to+beat+the+band%22&dq=%22to+beat+the+band%22&hl=en&ei=DTMWTdf6K4us8Abm_JnsBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA

  2. Haymoon:

    February 1st, 2012 at 5:24 am

    I have heard an addition to the phrase “to beat Banagher” – in Ireland – “Well that beat Banagher, and Banagher beat the devil”
    Incidentally the town of Banagher which is supposedly the origin of the phrase is in County Offaly in the Irish midlands. There is another Banagher in County Derry in the north of the country

  3. Anonymous:

    November 4th, 2012 at 8:27 pm

    Saw it in the Great Gatsby. After Myrtle found out that Wilson had borrowed a suit for their wedding she claimed to have “lay down and cried to beat the band all afternoon”.

  4. MW:

    March 27th, 2013 at 10:08 am

    This reference appears to be from 1954, not 1854.

  5. Kathy:

    January 4th, 2014 at 3:02 pm

    Interesting and well researched. Now, however, I am curious about the origins of “likety split!”

  6. DMc:

    April 30th, 2014 at 10:42 pm

    Are you sure it’s not “to beat” in a chronological sense? i.e. “to beat the band” means that you are working furiously so as to complete your task before the band starts playing?

  7. Dave:

    July 9th, 2014 at 12:30 pm

    I always think of “beating the band” as doing something with great vigor and frequency as a conductor beating time to establish tempo for the band.

  8. Karen Herman:

    July 12th, 2014 at 12:08 pm

    I think the expression has been around a long time since I’m 68 years old and have heard it all my life. Usually as “it’s raining to beat the band” or “it’s snowing to beat the band”.

  9. Humbler Acts:

    July 25th, 2014 at 3:57 am

    If people once thought of a band as something real special–only heard when something unusual comes–a parade,say… Well… then the phrase could mean that whatever one does is better than that special band.

    And further: the bandstand would be where that special
    band does its thing. In days before radio and tv, we’re probably talking about something quite exciting.

    “Beating the band” would mean greater than that great band.

  10. Mike:

    June 29th, 2017 at 8:07 am

    I prefer “it is raining harder than a cow pissing on a flat rock”

  11. Elliot Weiss:

    June 25th, 2018 at 3:55 pm

    In his memoir about the early days of music publishing, “They all sang”, Edward Marks describes singers before the days of microphones who literally had to “beat the band” in order to be heard over the music. The most successful of these iron lung fellows could do over 20 “song plugs” a night at varied establishments including concert saloons and early silent films.

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