“My Ding-a-Ling” by Chuck Berry (1972)

One person’s view:  “A lifetime of epoch-making rock and roll standards blighted by one attention-grabbing, innuendo-laden infantile sing-a-long which monstrously became the biggest hit of the great man's career.” – Lejink @ Rate Your Music

The public’s view:  2.11 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 1972 and 1973

Chuck Berry was one of the Founding Fathers of rock ‘n’ roll.  His influence was undeniably essential to the sound of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and so many other groups, and yet the #1 position on the pop chart eluded him for much of his life.  In middle age he finally figured out what the public had been wanting from him for all of those years:  a juvenile novelty song based on a dick joke.  He went to England and recorded a live performance of “My Ding-a-Ling”, and this became the greatest commercial success of his career.

Many people regard this as a horrible travesty that disrespects Berry’s contributions.  It’s as if Mother Teresa had been passed over repeatedly for the Nobel Peace Prize for all of her charity work, only to be designated People Magazine’s Sexiest Woman Alive after flaunting a swimsuit in front of the paparazzi.  I don’t see it this way at all.  “My Ding-a-Ling” is something that Berry had a right to be proud of.

Let’s consider the type of guy that he was.  There’s no need to rehash all of his personal scandals, some of which would have ended the career of a lesser personage, but I must note that he was one of the first celebrities to be (allegedly) featured on a leaked sex tape.  His sex tape makes Paris Hilton’s look like Citizen Kane by comparison.  If you haven’t seen it please don’t go looking for it.  I will make just one observation that should convince you not to watch it:  Some men prepare for a lovemaking session by ingesting a little blue pill.  Evidently, Chuck Berry preferred to eat a big bowl of beans.

With that in mind, the crudity of “My Ding-a-Ling” is not some out-of-character stain on Berry’s legacy.  It’s also not that bad of a novelty record, compared with other novelties that have hit #1.  It may be a one-joke song, but Berry’s showmanship and rapport with the audience gets extra mileage out of the joke.  And I always get a snicker at the thought of a guy trying to swim across a creek full of snapping turtles with both hands over his crotch.

I do have one minor nit to pick with the hit version of the record.  Though the humor relies on the audience’s lack of familiarity with the joke, the fans are somehow able to sing along perfectly on the first chorus.  It doesn’t make sense unless you listen to one of the longer versions of the performance, in which we hear Berry cleverly teaching the audience the chorus before launching into the main part of the song.  Ultimately, I can’t fault him for editing this part out of the single release.  He deserves our everlasting gratitude for getting radio stations to play a song about masturbation in 1972, but asking radio to play a ten-minute song about masturbation would have been a little too much.