[1] The composer spent two years in Brazil in the French diplomatic service during the First World War, and was influenced by its music in his own compositions.

When Madeleine Milhaud visited Mills College in the early eighties, Emmanuel of Radio à la Carte was able to have a conversation with her about her husband's playing before they moved to California for a while.

She shared that when people asked where they could hear the new young musicians, they would be told that the "Boeuf est sur le toit", the jam sessions is taking place on the roof.

[4] The original scoring calls for a chamber orchestra comprising two flutes, one doubling piccolo; one oboe; two clarinets in B♭; one bassoon; two horns in F; two trumpets in C; one trombone; one percussionist playing güiro,[n 1] tambourine, bass drum and cymbals; and strings.

The premiere was given on 21 February 1920 at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées in a programme that also included Francis Poulenc's overture Cocardes, the ballet Adieu New York by Georges Auric, three settings by Poulenc of verses by Cocteau, and Trois petites pièces montées by Erik Satie.

The jockey takes exception to the boxer's overtures to the red-headed lady and knocks him down, before joining the female customers in a tango.

[3] The barman replaces the head on the body of the policeman, who revives, but is confronted with a huge bill, several metres long, for everybody's drinks.

Despite the liveliness of the music, the characters dance in slow motion, "like deep-sea divers moving against the current", in Harding's phrase.

[7] The ballet was well received in Paris, and Cocteau and Milhaud took it to London,[n 2] where Hugo Rumbold presented it under the title The Nothing Doing Bar.