Chuck Berry, My Ding-a-Ling | Controversial Tunes 😈🎶

In the 8^th edition of Controversial Tunes (2023), we explore the controversy behind the song, “My Ding-a-Ling” by Chuck Berry. 

Bring on the controversy! Controversial Tunes 😈🎶 is a column that provides background information and insight into songs that raised eyebrows and totally stirred the pot.  The records that grace Controversial Tunes are old and new alike, with all genres of music welcome.  In the 8^th edition of Controversial Tunes (2023), we explore the controversy behind the song, 🎵 “My Ding-a-Ling” by 🎙 Chuck Berry. 

“When I was a little bitty boy / My grandmother bought me a cute little toy.” Sigh, us boys, we love our toys! Continue, 🎙 Chuck Berry: “Silver bells hangin’ on a string / She told me it was my ding a ling ling.” Hmm 🤔, now things are getting a bit, dare I say, phallic? To be fair, on his sole no. 1 Billboard Hot hit, 🎵 “My Ding-a-Ling”, the rock icon never explicitly mentions the penis. That said, he doesn’t have to.  Even the innocent lines of this reworked 🎼 ✍ David Bartholemew-penned joint feel like an ode to the crown jewels if you catch my drift.  Those bells aren’t bells 😈!

“My Ding-a-Ling” is not profound – it’s utterly ridiculous if anything. That said, you can’t listen to the chorus, where Berry asserts, “I want to play with my ding a ling” and not roll your eyes, laugh, or cringe hard.  Things only get worse from there, as in the second verse, at church, mind you, “Every time the choir would sing / I’d sit there and play with my ding a ling.” 🤯! Apparently, in the third verse, he’s caught 🤯! You can’t help but chuckle in the fourth, when he protects ding-a-ling after an accident: “I fell so hard I heard bells ring / But I never let go of my ding a ling.” The fifth verse is one reason why some radio stations probably refused to play it:

“I remember the girl next door

We used to play house on the kitchen floor

She’d be the queen, I’d be the king

Together we’d play with my ding a ling a ling.”

My, my, my! It is worth noting that Mary Whitehouse attempted to get the song banned in Britain, to no avail. The deal is music has grown much more explicit than Berry’s 🎵 “My Ding-a-Ling” could ever hope to be.  Furthermore, we’ve had more hardcore penile songs top the Billboard Hot 100 – Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop”, for example.  Still, the double entendre is quite pronounced on this Berry song often labelled as his worst despite its success.

🎙 Chuck Berry • 💿 Have Mercy – His Complete Chess Recordings 1969 – 1974 • 🏷 Geffen • 🗓 2010

Chuck Berry, “My Ding-a-Ling”: Controversial Tunes 😈🎶 No. 8 (2023) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Geffen; Anand Kulkarni, Aykut Bingül, Luân Phan, mohammadreza merhvand via Pexels; Anna, Gordon Taylor, harshahars from Pixabay; christian buehner on Unsplash]