My Ding a ling C/D?

CHUCK BERRY
"My Ding-a-Ling"
Chess, 1972
highest chart position: number one (two weeks)

Chuck Berry has been served with many injustices in his time: Abuse at the hands of concert promoters, prison terms for offenses no white man would see jail for, cover versions of his songs by the Beach Boys, etc. One of the greatest, however, is that none of his wry fifties and sixties singles for Chess, among the most essential in all rock and roll, ever became a number-one hit. We live in a world that allows "You Light Up My Life" to clutter the top of the charts for ten weeks but leaves no room for "Johnny B. Goode," "Roll Over Beethover," or "Memphis" to hit it for even one. It's enough to make you pop your eardrums.

You might want to push that sharp pin in a little deeper when you discover that "My Ding-a-Ling" was Berry's sole chart-topper. Recording live at the Lancaster's Arts Festival in Conventry, England, Berry introduces "My Ding-a-Ling" as "our alma mater" and as a "fourth-grade ditty" in his interminable introduction (the LP version of "My Ding-a-Ling," on The London Chuck Berry Sessions, rambled on for 11:33), but in fact the song is far less mature. "We have one more left to do," Berry says just before the song, and the crowd its disapproval. It's as if they know it's coming.

"My Ding-a-Ling" strings together double-entendre penis jokes that can be enjoyed only by the very young or the very drunk. There were enough of both at Conventry that night to join in for a lengthy sing-along, although that didn't stop Chuck from exhorting more to join in: "Those of you who will not sing," he rasps hoarsely, "you must be playing with your own ding-a-ling." So there Berry was, arguably the most direct songwriter in rock and roll, reduced to begging drunk Brit kids to sing about masturbation. "That's future Parliament out there singing," Berry warns at one point (by now you get the idea that he doesn't get around to much singing here), implying that not singing along is a bad career move for the crowd.

Back on these shores, we were so confused (Nixon was on his way to a landslide) that we placed "My Ding-a-Ling" at the top of the pop chart. Berry's first audience, the rhythm-and-blues crowd, was much wiser. This bathroom-joke exercise from the former rhythmic master was so unfunky that it didn't reach higher than number forty-two on the R&B chart. Berry should have taken the hint: after this album, he never had another hit. However, there is now a generation of young adults who think Chuck Berry was just the guy who did "My Ding-a-Ling." Bye-bye, Johnny.

I don't agree with a lot of this piece, as far as the dressing around the main point of why "My Ding-a-long" is pathetic, but I do think it's a great piece. And I do share the same feeling about the song.

As for "My Ding-a-ling", I have no opinion, because I literally haven't heard it in over 25+ years. It was playing on the radio at a birthday party I attended when I was about six or seven. Why do I remember these things?

My question: Is there anyone in the govt (past or present) that was there when this was recorded?

Someone should tell Jimmy Guterman & Owen O' Donnell that it's Lanchester Arts Festival in Coventry. Are there any current significant UK politicians from the Midlands? Clare Short obviously does not count.

Search: "My Ding-A-Ling"'s B-side, a live version of "Johnny B. Goode" that was recorded at the same gig. By the end of the song, the rowdy-sounding crowd starts stomping and hollering for more, while the management pleads with the audience on mic to quietly leave because Pink Floyd have a gig later in the same venue!