Unraveling Obsession: Inside the Haunting World of The March Xness Anthology
Martin Seay, on Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling,” Berry’s only number-one hit:
What’s most disturbing about Berry is the inescapable suggestion that these two major traits—virtuosic pied piper of America’s youth, and sexually compulsive predator—cannot be disentangled: that his genius cannot be easily extricated from his bad behavior, that the latter infests the former to its core. Part of the dangerous, faintly illicit thrill of Berry’s best music comes from the impression of these tendencies circling each other, sparks arcing through the gap between them, achieving an unstable equilibrium. And part of what makes ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ so awful comes from the impression of this equilibrium collapsing, just utterly showing its ass. . . . What’s upsetting about ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ . . . is the fact that it was rewarded so abundantly. Not even that, it’s the fact that it was rewarded so abundantly when it was the worst thing Berry ever recorded, while the best things Berry ever recorded are among the best things anybody ever recorded.
