Audiogrammes

“If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.” — John Lennon


This post is a weird double whammy. Actually, read on… It might even be a quadruple-whammy.

I was going through my digital music library and decided I’d clean it up a bit and make some space. I don’t know how I got to a really lo-res (56kbps!!!) version of Chuck Berry’s Memphis Tennessee.
And I remembered that John Lennon had nicked Come Together‘s opening line (Here come ol’ flat-top, he was movin’ up with me) from a Chuck Berry lyric. A few google search attempts later and I had discovered it was You Can’t Catch Me. I’d always thought it was Come on…

He’d later record a whole album of Rock’n'Roll standards in order to settle this royalties issue.

It’s funny, I usually post so many lyrics, and this is a lyric-initiated blogpost but it’s actually leading to a mostly instrumental theme. Bear with me…

I then realized John Lennon was also “inspired” for Sun King, another track on Abbey Road.

Forget about the lyrics: they’re mostly gibberish and Google translate didn’t recognize the Span-talian at the end.
Focus on the progression: it sounds a lot like a Fleetwood Mac instrumental called Albatross

And the worst part is Peter Green got his inspiration from Chuck Berry‘s Deep Feeling

Once again, we have the Chuck Berry connection…
But wait, there’s more!
It seems a lot of lesser-known musicians are still not credited by the big boys. Click here to read some more about about Jake Holmes and Led Zeppelin’s Dazed and Confused.

And all this “inspiration” took me straight back to that lyric from 1992: “Hail hail rock ‘n’ roll, comes from r ‘n’ b and soul…”

Ahaha ahaha ….
Pockets of hate, rockets of love
It’s never too late, the change in the color of
The color of her, the color of him
It really doesn’t matter what skin you’re in
Big yellow taxi cab passed me by
Stopped on the next corner to pick up a white guy
The color of you, the color of me
You can’t judge a man by looking at the marque

Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino
Here come Elvis, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee
Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino
Here come Elvis, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee


I love everything about this song: the video, the lyrics, the story behind the album “Don’t Call Me Buckwheat” as well as Garland Jeffreys‘ crazy career.

But wait! there’s more… we go full circle once again: Hail hail rock ‘n’ roll is a documentary film that chronicles two concerts celebrating Chuck Berry‘s 60th birthday!!!


Post-Scriptum: As I was finishing this post I did a small research and realized John Lennon and Chuck Berry had actually played together on the Mike Douglas show in 1972!!! Thank you WFMU. I’ll leave you with some a great version of the track that started this whole post!!!

Well we know where we’re goin’
But we don’t know where we’ve been
And we know what we’re knowin’
But we can’t say what we’ve seen
And we’re not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out

We’re on a ride to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin’ that ride to nowhere
We’ll take that ride

I’m feelin’ okay this mornin’
And you know,
We’re on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go

They can tell you what to do
But they’ll make a fool of you
And it’s all right, baby, it’s all right
We’re on a road to nowhere

Said to the man at the railroad station
“I want a ticket, just for one”
He said, “well, if you insist
Where you wanna go, a miss? Oh”

Destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
You see my baby don’t want me no more
This old world, ain’t got no back door

Mixing it up slightly here. Have you seen The Commitments? Haven’t seen it in ages. I’m scared it might’ve not aged too well. So the Youtube link is the film version, but the download link above is the Marvelettes’.

So we’ve been from nowhere to anywhere…

Sultry in the summer heat.
I know with you we can’t be beat.
Take me somewhere.
Take me somewhere.
Take me somewhere.
Why don’t you take me somewhere?

Can you hear me calling
Out your name
You know that I’m falling
And I don’t know what to say

Oh I…
I want to be with you everywhere

Do you have the impression you’ve heard a recent cover of this song?
Or maybe it was just Cut Copy’s Take Me Over?

To lead a better life I need my love to be here…

I will be there and everywhere
Here, there and everywhere

And Bob will sign us off…

I don’t care
How many letters they sent
Morning came and morning went
Pick up your money
And pack up your tent
You ain’t goin’ nowhere