Karel Pospíšil was born in Běstvina (Bohemia) in 1867. He first learned the piano and then the violin. Later he became a teacher and school director in Prague. Pospíšil was an excellent choir director who also wrote his own compositions. He performed these very successfully with his choirs. Due to his excellent piano playing, Pospíšil was also in great demand as an accompanist. Thus, he worked with renowned Czech musicians such as František Ondříček, Jan Kubelík or Jaroslav Kocian. With his work as a teacher, he brought about a reformation of singing lessons in schools. Karel Pospíšil was active in the so-called Sokol movement (gymnastics movement) and wrote around 300 pieces of music for it.
His most famous work is undoubtedly the march "Bai-Kai-Lai" from 1908, the year in which the famous "Prague Jubilee Exhibition" took place. As a particularly amusing attraction, visitors could marvel at an oversized elephant. Inside one could visit the "Slon" (English: "Elephant") pub. For promotional purposes, the thirsty guests were served a beer called "Bai-Kai-Lai". For entertainment, an orchestra played a cheerful marching tune that advertised the pub and the beer of the same name with the lyrics "Bai-Kai-Lai". Even though the huge replica (a massive iron construction) was dismantled immediately after the exhibition, the cheerful marching song has endured to this day. The original subtitle "Egyptian March" probably refers to the elephant as the pub’s exotic symbolic figure.