CHUCK BERRY - “My Ding-A-Ling”
(#323, 4th November 1972)
I’ve rarely liked listening to other people have fun and “My Ding-A-Ling” is no exception. You can’t deny they’re having it, though, except maybe the people who won’t sing, pursued by Chuck Berry with a slightly worrying fervour (obviously everyone was singing, but he still sounds strangely like Graham Norton’s character on Father Ted). Berry’s enjoying himself most of all - or else he fakes it very well - so I’ve no time for the people who think of this as a blot on the man’s copybook, and good for him if he made some money off it. Hard to imagine this scrappy bag of dick jokes being any kind of hit even a few years later, though. 2
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Erithian on June 8th, 2007
A few cool things we know about this record:
1 – it was recorded on 3 February 1972 at the Locarno in Coventry – which, cosmically, was the same place where the Special A/K/A recorded “Too Much Too Young” seven years later – two live Number 1s at the same venue!.
2 – Chuck was late turning up and refused to do an encore – which was unfortunate because the hall had to be cleared to prepare for the Pink Floyd gig later that night. The audience refused to leave for an hour, and the Floyd had to wait.
3 – as far as anyone knows there were no fledgling MPs in “that future Parliament out there singin’”, but thanks to super spotter Waldo we know that Noddy Holder was among their number!
4 – it prevented both the Osmonds’ “Crazy Horses” and Slade’s “Gudbuy T’Jane” from reaching Number 1 – this and the next entry on Popular are prime examples of “doing a Joe Dolce”.
Michael Daddino on June 8th, 2007
I think I must’ve been four or five when I first heard this, and yes, I thought it was about a bell. Also, I think I may once fell off the family’s jungle gym (on my head, ’splains everything)listening to it.
Michael Daddino on June 8th, 2007
The audience’s fervor does bug me. I can’t really understand why crowd of adults would get so hepped up over what’s basically the same kind of naughty nursery rhyme they stopped thinking was amusing back in elementary school. (Though I also think it’s likely the audience sounds were probably “sweetened” some way in the final mix.)
FT's Tom on June 8th, 2007
I suspect they were also “sweetened” by enormous consumption of Watneys Red Barrel etc!
FT's Tom on June 8th, 2007
Also: Carry On Films!
Brian on June 8th, 2007
Did Gary Glitter cover this ?
FT's wwolfe on June 8th, 2007
For me, this might be the ultimate example of the wrong song being a great artist’s only #1. It’s as if “Big Yellow Taxi” had been Dylan’s only #1. My admiration and respect for Chuck Berry - as writer, guitar picker, originator, Hepcat Extraordinaire - is boundless. “Johnny B. Goode” would be an easy “10″ in my ratings. So it causes near-physical pain to say I agree with the “2″ for this record. I’m glad Chuck got a #1. I really, really wish “Sweet Little Sixteen” hadn’t stalled at #2.
Tom on June 8th, 2007
Bob Dylan of course never got a #1 :(
Totally agree that it’s a shame this is CB’s only #1. The only thing I disagree with is the idea that it reflects badly on CB! (Maybe I have made this idea up though).
intothefireuk on June 9th, 2007
Well at the time I wasn’t aware of Chuck’s glorious past and so knew him only for this. Trouble with most (all ?) comedy records is, if they are actually funny at all, they are only funny once. It’s probably not his fault that a live possibly throw away song was released as a single by his record company. Ultimately it doesn’t taint his legacy and thankfully it is many years since I last heard it.
Marcello Carlin on June 9th, 2007
Coventry Locarno? For some reason I had it in my head that it was recorded at Loughborough University (thus all the student/future Parliament references)…but his backing group for the rest of the gig was I believe the nascent Average White Band.
Bob Dylan has not yet had a UK number one as a performer, but up to 1972 he’d had one chart-topper as a composer (”Mighty Quinn”).
Billy Smart on June 9th, 2007
“Bob Dylan has not yet had a UK number one as a performer” -
Oh yes, he has! Without planting a spoiler, we’ll briefly be hearing from him in 1985…
Waldo on June 9th, 2007
Apart from the Noddy Holder effect (sorry for the spoiler), this was totally dreadful. It was Berry’s “Laughing Gnome”, if you will. I can recall TOTP initially showing the original live footage from Coventry (I probably figured it was recorded in Memphis or Nashville back then) before replacing it, as the disc continue to stop at number one, with a series of drawings of a young white boy playing with a “silver bell hangin’ on a string”. Mary Whitehouse, of course, went loco over this record but she really shouldn’t have bothered. I was eleven at the time and had just started senior school. Neither myself nor any of my other fellow first years felt that “playing wit your own ding-a-ling” remotely funny. Ridiculous rubbish, even if it did line a legend’s pockets.
Billy Smart on June 9th, 2007
I’ve been wondering if there’s anything good that could be said about this. I suppose that the patter-like storytelling vocal style used in Berry’s own songs crosses over well to the Max Miller delivery and performance that My Ding-a-Ling requires. This might be appalling, but is at least efficiently done. It would be even worse done by anybody else!
In Mary Whitehouse’s memoirs she says that the NVLA did not object to the song but Berry’s suggestive gestures when he performed it on Top of the Pops. These gestures don’t appear to be enacted on the the one surviving TOTP clip.
Marcello Carlin on June 10th, 2007
Ah yes, of course - Dylan being one of the few redeeming factors of that particular, regrettablenumber one…
I don’t mind “My Ding-A-Ling”…it isn’t profound but it’s not hateful either; in terms of musical precedents it probably goes back to the thirties (Cab Calloway?) and even further to the turn-of-the-century days of the *whisper it* minstrel shows (actually, there may be something in the latter since the song does sound like one of those “Trad. arr.” tunes which has been around forever; see also Donegan on “Dustman” whose progeny stretches back to WWI barrack room songs, where he said that all he was doing was applying the Guthrie/Leadbelly ethic to Britain with quite a bit of music hall thrown in)…
Certainly as a seasonal novelty it is far more palatable than the next number one…
(additional point: there was a trend towards sauciness and modest double entendre in the UK charts around this time anyway - see Judge Dread’s “Big Six,” one of 1972’s biggest sellers despite not getting any higher than #11, and also, if one must, “Loop Di Love,” top five for Jonathan King as Shag, just so he could revel in Blackburn and Edmonds having to say the word “shag” on daytime radio, ah dearie me…)
Erithian on June 11th, 2007
Marcello - the student references were due to the gig being part of the Lanchester College of Arts Festival.
There was another hit title in ’72 that Tony Blackburn couldn’t even bring himself to read out on the chart rundown, describing it as simply “a record by Wings” – it was of course “Give Ireland Back To The Irish”! No sauce or double entendre, but you can imagine Radio 1 bosses being very cautious over it…
Marcello Carlin on June 11th, 2007
Lanchester, that was it!
Ah, the illustrious 1972 chart run of Wings - “Give Ireland Back To The Irish” (”Make Ireland Irish today”) followed by “Mary Had A Little Lamb” (”It was a protest, y’know like”) and then the year end double A-side of “C Moon,” which was the only one the BBC played since they sniffed EVIL DRUG INFLUENCES in “Hi Hi Hi.”
Erithian on June 11th, 2007
Macca played “C Moon” live just last week!
Waldo on June 11th, 2007
May I say that “Memory Almost Full” is a remarkable album…and that Macca is a remarkable man.
Brian on June 11th, 2007
Had it not been for cover versions of some of his songs by The Beatles & Stones , CB may have slipped into relative obscurity after doing a jail term for hiring under-age women to “work” at his St. Louis club. He did some prison time and when relesed in 1963 - he re-launched a career that is still going.
His ” ding-a-ling ” further got him trouble in 1990’s when there was a class action suit filed against him ( cost him 1.5 million dollars ) when it found that he had installed video cameras in the ladies toilet of his clubs.
He’s 81 this year and still tours the summer festivals.
Billy Smart on June 11th, 2007
The defining Chuck Berry moment of my youth was his appearance on ‘Aspel & Company’, circa 1987, to promote his autobiography -
MA: (genially) So I understand that you’ll be playing Johnny B Goode for us tonight?
CB: No! For second-class money you get a second-class song! (goes on to play Memphis Tennessee)
Marcello Carlin on June 11th, 2007
I can’t remember whether he went on TOTP to do the song - they may have used live footage instead, but please to God someone confirm that there wasn’t a Pan’s People “literal” dance interpretation…
Waldo on June 11th, 2007
Marcello - I refer you to my earlier note, comment #12, concerning TOTP on this. Pan’s People (Hubba Hubba Hubba!) certainly did not interpret “Ding-a-Ling”. I don’t think Flick Colby would have run with it. My own best moment with Babs, Ruth, Dee Dee etc was when they had a bash at Ashton Gardener and Dyke’s “Resurrection Shuffle”, an absolute belter of a record, which fell just short of the top in 1971.
Lena on June 11th, 2007
Huh! If “Memphis Tennessee” was good enough for Johnny Rivers, it’s not a second-class song.
FT's wwolfe on June 12th, 2007
Just to clarify, I didn’t mean to imply that “Ding-a-Ling” diminished Berry’s legacy. I only meant that, sentimentally speaking, it would’ve been nice if his only #1 (both in the States and in the UK, oddly) had been one of his great songs.
For me, the enjoyable aspect of this record is the palpable glee Berry conveys in being naughty. It doesn’t make it a great piece of music, but I can’t help admiring a man so totally unapologetic about his savoring of the lubricious, Mann Act conviction be damned.
Billy Smart on June 12th, 2007
My Ding a Ling was on Top of the Pops seven times; four times in the studio, once as a promo video and twice as a ‘disc performance’ (is that just the studio audience dancing? They never repeat those on TOTP2). Pan’s People appear to have been on a sabbatical in the latter months of 1972, only returning at Christmas to interpret Hot Butter and Without You.
Marcello Carlin on June 13th, 2007
Yes, “disc performance” means you just saw the audience dancing to it, usually over the end credits. Sometimes I wish they’d show entire archive editions of TOTP complete with DJ links but I understand there aren’t too many of those preserved at the BBC.
The “disc performance” persisted into the early eighties, culminating in the ridiculous spectacle of Radio 1 DJs (and Jonathan King) “dancing” (with individuals being freeze-framed) to Adam Ant’s “Friend Or Foe.”
O SOBEK! on June 13th, 2007
Are “disc performance”s effectively the same as the standard ‘American Bandstand/Soul Train/Dance Fever/Club MTV’ setup ie. televised kids dancing to a song? If so is there not a real legacy in the UK or was it just a temporary rare occurrence with TOTP? I’d always imagined TOTP being effectively Soul Train - some “live” performances but mainly kids dancing with TOTP having a ‘this week’s chart’ focus/gimmick - is this not remotely the case?
Mark Grout on June 14th, 2007
Oh, you haven’t lived if you haven’t seen the “disc performance” of Joy Division’s “Love will tear us part” over the closing credits of TOTP!!!
Batman on June 14th, 2007
As I remember it… after the Mary Whitehouse incident, the BBC went to great lengths to stress that the song was indeed about silver balls hanging on a string. Even to the point of getting Tony Blackburn to introduce it one week with the words… “in case you’re wondering what a Ding A Ling is, It’s one of these”. He then proceeded to hold up a piece of string with silver balls on. I think this was the first week that they stopped showing the live clip and used the “disc performance” format instead, which in this case was a number of still drawings illustrating the song’s lyrics litterally. For example, one drawing showed a young boy swimming across a creek, holding on to his Ding A Ling (silver balls hanging on a string) for dear life while being pursued by crocodiles.
Batman on June 14th, 2007
The most hilarious Pans People performance of 1972 for me, had to be the week that they were given the task of dancing to Debora by Tyrannosaurus Rex. The record had been reissued by Fly Records after Marc Bolan had dumped them to set up his own label.
Marcello Carlin on June 14th, 2007
Their routine to Gilbert O’Sullivan’s second number one was legendar(il)y (bad).
Also from 1982: “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band, again over the end credits but featuring a magician whom they’d obviously engaged at competitive rates from the classified ads section of The Stage performing highly original tricks with doves, glass-bottle-bottle-glass, rabbits &c. “Abracadabra,” you see (what they did there?).
Chris Brown on June 14th, 2007
Not a terribly relevant comment, but I thought it might be worth mentioning that this is the first chart-topper since ‘My Sweet Lord’ that I actually have a copy of. Bit of a gap for me, the early Seventies.
Anthony on June 18th, 2007
i love this song, for its freedom, and its low key obscenity, and its unadulrated joy.
Rosie on June 18th, 2007
This was also a fixture on the Sphinx Bar jukebox. This time it was accompanied, not only by bad beer and pies, but also by a certain caste of student (presumably Engineers) bellowing along to it!
Brian on June 21st, 2007
for CB fans re: Johnny Be Good
http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/comment/story/0,,2108561,00.html
Mike Jones on October 31st, 2007
So many of these early-’70s #1s evoke specific childhood memories (Mouldy Old Dough/School’s Out will forever been spliced together in my head with the zzzzcchuppp sound of my brother’s cassette recorder going in and out of rec-pause as we taped the audio off the TOTP Xmas ‘72 broadcast).
This one has stirred a memory from an end-of-term “disco” at my primary school in, I guess, summer ‘78. It was a disco in the sense that we were allowed to bring in records and play them while we all sat at our desks eating crisps and drinking pop. I don’t believe dancing was encouraged. After Sweet, Blondie, Slade, Abba, whatever, came this. The girl who brought it in seemed a bit nervous about handing it over to the teacher; the record provoked gales of laughter (though I wasn’t sure why it was so funny) and the teacher (Mrs C4ulf13ld, I think) asked the girl, “Is it supposed to be funny?” Girl shrugged, producing a fiercer “I asked you, is it supposed to be FUNNY?” Girl was reduced to tears, disco was swiftly brought to an end.
FT's richard thompson on May 23rd, 2008
Those TOTP drawings were drawn by Rolf Harris I have “reason to believe”, though this was the first time I had heard of Mr Berry as well, as I was 10 then, haven’t seen any repeated performances of it since and haven’t heard the long version yet.
FT's and everybody elses Mark G on May 23rd, 2008
The long version is mostly consisting of Chuck teaching the chorus and telling the girls to sing “My” and the boys to sing “ding-a-ling”…
Which is why he got a big laugh about one guy singing “my”
ian mccolm on July 11th, 2008
Just discovered this site a few days ago : managed to hold my tongue on Comments till I got to this one.
Fact 1 : this IS a truly appalling record
Fact 2 : You can take jokes from some musicians, but CB is not one of them, due the mostly superb (as against just OK) music he had made up till then.
This is surely just CB being incredibly lazy and earning loads of money.
Erithian on July 11th, 2008
Welcome on board Ian, and don’t hold your tongue any more!
Mark G on July 11th, 2008
Hell, the dude deserved a payday/testimonial!
Mark G on July 11th, 2008
So was there ‘future parliament out there singing”?
I always wondered. well, maybe not always…
Erithian on July 11th, 2008
Mark - see point 3 in my posting #1!
Modernairio on August 1st, 2008
It just hit me after enjoying this recording - dumb whiiipeeples singing along! The girls sang MY and the boys sang DINGALING! Ha!
And Chuck’s “its a free country!” rings of gay black humor! Kick ass subversive Rock song in the spirit of Rock!