(novelty song written by “dave bartholomew”)
(1972 chuck berry song)
(his only #1 hit)
(in the live Berry version, Berry makes the chorus a call-and-response, in which the women in the audience sing “my” and the men respond by shouting “ding-a-ling!”)
(at one point, Berry notes that a few of the men are singing the women’s parts and that some women are adding (audible in the recording) a harmony line; Berry allows and openly encourages it, exclaiming “it’s a free country! Live like you wanna live!”)
(in the final verse, he admonishes “those of you who will not sing” by suggesting that they “must be playing with [their] own ding-a-ling”)