Of British-English origin, the phrase when the band begins to play means: when matters become difficult or serious.
This phrase occurred, for example, in the following passage from Bucky O’Connor: A Tale of the Unfenced Border (New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1910), by the British-born U.S. novelist William MacLeod Raine (1871-1954):
“You’re wise guys, gents, both of yez. This is shure a case for the leftenant. It’s send for Bucky quick when the band begins to play,” he grinned.
The metaphor underlying the phrase when the band begins to play is obscure. The earliest occurrence of this phrase that I have found (cf., below, quotation 1) indicates that when the band begins to play may have originally alluded to a music-hall song. The only song of that title that I have found, which became hugely successful, was interpreted from 1870 onwards by the British music-hall singer Annie Adams (Ann Eliza Adams – 1843-1905). The earliest mention of this song that I have found is from The Era (London, England) of Sunday 16th January 1870, and the following details appeared in the account of a music-hall performance that had taken place at the London Pavilion, published in the same newspaper on Sunday 20th February 1870:
A goodly group of lady singers assisted. Among these were Miss Annie Adams, who sang in her well-known sharp and forcible style a merry, exhilarating effusion, of which the words “I feel so awfully jolly when the band begins to play pom! pom!” form a portion of the chorus […].
The phrase when the band begins to play seems to have no connection with to face the music, a phrase of obscure origin, too, which means: to accept or confront the inevitable, or the unpleasant consequences of one’s actions.
The earliest occurrences of the phrase when the band begins to play that I have found are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From A Derby Ditty, by ‘Troubadour’, published in The Sporting Gazette, and Agricultural Journal (London, England) of Saturday 24th May 1879:
Lord Enfield can’t know less of race horses, I guess,
Than the cove that’s now a handling of the pen;
But the “top c song” in “Zoo” has given me the cue,
For which I beg to thank Miss Lottie Venn. 1Yes, I heard it from my brother—or stay, was it my mother?
Or possibly our new provincial vet.?
That it’s easy as a dinner to pick out the Derby winner,
So I send you these ideas for the “Gazette.”The Archerites declare it is odds on Charibert,
But his music ain’t the thing, ’twixt you and me;
And upon the Derby day, when the “band begins to play,”
His backers p’raps will find they’re “up a tree.”
1 The references to “top c song”, “Zoo” and Miss Lottie Venn are obscure.
2-: From A Barrack-Room Ballad 2, by the British novelist, short-story writer and poet Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), published in The Evening Telegraph (Dundee, Angus, Scotland) of Friday 28th February 1890:
A BARRACK-ROOM BALLAD.
I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ’e up an’ sez—“We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O, it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy go away;”
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O, it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play.
2 This poem was published under the title Tommy in The Scots Observer (London, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland) of Saturday 1st March 1890, and under the title The Queen’s Uniform in The St. James’s Gazette (London, England) of Saturday 1st March 1890. Its title is Tommy in Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses (London: Methuen and Co., 1892).
3-: From the column The Lorgnette, published in the Glasgow Evening News (Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland) of Tuesday 10th November 1891:
At the World’s Fair at Chicago Colonel Cody will be the right man in the right place as commander-in-chief of the great Indian section of the show. […] At the close of that immense function he will, I understand, retire on his laurels and his fortune—which latter, by the way, must be a good thing even as fortunes go nowadays in the land of the setting sun—and spend the remainder of his days in well-earned peace and quietude with his family in Nebraska State, the old hunting-ground of the merry scalping Sioux. That is to say, unless there be further trouble with the red-skinned son of the prairie, in which case we may bet that Buffalo Bill’s saddle and shooting irons will not long remain in the seclusion of the home rooftree. I should say that “Bill” is just the man that will want to be there all the time, and that he is likely to be one of the men whom the Government don’t wish to have too far off when the bands begin to play.
4-: From Current Topics, published in the Evening Herald (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Tuesday 14th June 1892:
The promoters of the “Law and Order” Rebellion Convention, which meets this week in Belfast, might have a choir trained to sing, under the conductorship of his Grace the Duke of Argyle, the following chorus at intervals throughout the proceedings:—
It’s Ulster this, and Ulster that,
And Ulster go away;
But it’s, Ulster dear, you’ll sure be near
When the band begins to play.
5-: From the West Ham Herald and South Essex Gazette (London, England) of Saturday 22nd October 1892:
TIM BOBBIN IS ASKED TO BECOME A CANDIDATE FOR MUNICIPAL HONOURS, BUT DOESN’T SEE THE FUN OF IT.
Mister Editor,—I’ve been asked to become a candidate for the Town Council election. They say in Canning Town that if I put up I should come in at the top of the poll. I’m not going to do it. I don’t want to do anything that might knock out White and Lambert, and I’d rather let Hooper get in than put up myself. The fact is, my ambition doesn’t lie in that direction. I don’t want to be a Town Councillor. It might add to one’s dignity in some people’s estimation, but I won’t go in for it. It would only be a case of Rudyard Kipling’s “Tommy Atkins” on a larger scale, and if that popular author will forgive me I’ll parody his lines:
“Oh, it’s Bobbin this, and Bobbin that, and Bobbin go away;
“But it’s thank you, Mr. Bobbin, when the band begins to play.”
No, Mister Editor, I’ll be plain Tim Bobbin as long as I live.
6-: From The Political Van, published in The National Observer (London, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland) of Saturday 29th October 1892:
Probably Mr. Schnadhorst finds that his great difficulty is to find a troop of Stigginses so destitute of brains, conscience, and imagination that they can go on telling the same lies every day for months on end. For even the brutes he salaries yearn at times for a wider field, and will venture to unfold the real Liberal programme. That (to use a pleasant vulgarism) is when the band begins to play. Stiggins has all sorts of literature on his shelves; there are the tools of his trade—the tracts on the Big Loaf and the Little One, the Bloating of the Capitalist, the Allegory of the Hungry Labourer and the Fat Allotment Holder. But when he brings out the Local Option homily, Hodge, solicitous about his Sunday pint, is not slow to rebel. He is in no wise concerned for the London Programme, with its taxation of ground rents, and the rest; but he has a kind of rough honesty that, being outraged by thieving proposals unconnected with himself and ‘his’n,’ has led more than once to blows.
The phrase when the band begins to play is now chiefly used in reference to Rudyard Kipling. The following, for example, is from a letter to the Editor, by one Larry Nolan, published in the Daily Post (Liverpool, Merseyside, England) of Friday 9th February 1990:
SIR,—I noted your columnist’s comments on the treatment of Merseyside by the Ministry of Defence in awarding contracts. I was struck by the fact that in Knowsley there are 300 war widows and people in receipt of a war disability pension.
So, with apologies to Rudyard Kipling:
O it’s Scouser this and Scouser that
And Scouser go away
But it’s the thin red line of heroes
When the band begins to play.
For Scousers they ain’t angels
When they’re thrust upon the dole,
But they’re the first ones to the colours
When the drums begin to roll.
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