{"id":3605,"date":"2018-06-09T02:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T06:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=3605"},"modified":"2022-02-19T10:14:54","modified_gmt":"2022-02-19T15:14:54","slug":"nadine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/nadine\/","title":{"rendered":"Nadine (Chuck Berry)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Nadine\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ibO1FOD47FI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is my favorite Chuck Berry lyric, which is saying a lot. He was a phenomenal writer, with a gift for fitting words together so they scanned, rhymed, and still felt like normal human speech spiked with flashes of wry humor:<\/p>\n<p><em>As I got on a city bus and found a vacant seat<br \/>\nI thought I saw my future bride walking down the street.<br \/>\nI yelled to the driver, &#8220;Hey, conductor, you mus&#8217;<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Slow down, I think I see her &#8212; Please let me off the bus!&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3725 size-medium alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Chuck-Berry.jpeg?resize=283%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"283\" height=\"300\" \/>Berry is usually classed as a pioneer of rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll, which of course is true, as far as it goes. His most influential moment was the mid 1950s, when he recorded &#8220;Maybelline,&#8221; &#8220;Johnny B. Goode,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/memphis\/\">Memphis<\/a>,&#8221; and a string of other hits, as well as lesser-known masterpieces like &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/much-monkey-business\/\">Too Much Monkey Business<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/no-money-down\/\">No Money Down<\/a>.&#8221; But that was only part of the story: he kept developing as a writer over the next decade, and some of his greatest lyrics were penned in the early 1960s (maybe during his year and a half in prison on a racist Mann Act conviction): &#8220;Nadine,&#8221; &#8220;Promised Land,&#8221; &#8220;No Particular Place to Go,&#8221; and &#8220;You Never Can Tell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After that, he pretty much cruised as an oldies artist &#8212; his only number one hit came in 1972 with &#8220;My Ding-a-ling,&#8221; but that was a naughty novelty he&#8217;d been performing at live shows for years. There was another prison stint for income tax evasion and some unpleasant stories&#8230; but whatever the complexities of his personal life, his songs changed the world. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3727 size-full alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Chuck-Berry-2.jpg?resize=200%2C263&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"263\" \/>It is impossible to imagine Bob Dylan writing &#8220;Subterranean Homesick Blues&#8221; without Berry&#8217;s example, and no one ever turned street language into poetry as naturally, at least until the classic era of rap.<\/p>\n<p>I only saw Berry twice, at the Cape Cod Melody Tent circa 1970 and a quarter century later at the one-off Newport R&amp;B Festival. That was an incredible line-up, two days of music with Dr. John&#8217;s band backing everybody on day one and Allen Toussaint&#8217;s band backing everybody on day two. Chuck played with Toussaint, and it was the weirdest and most memorable set of the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t say it was good, exactly &#8212; but it was real music, not canned, not the hits, not just going through the motions&#8230; which was noteworthy, because Chuck was by then notorious for just playing the hits and going through the motions. As far as I could tell, that was his plan at Newport as well, but he came out and there was <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3726 size-full alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Allen-Toussaint.jpg?resize=256%2C228&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"256\" height=\"228\" \/>Allen Toussaint on piano &#8212; a giant in his own right &#8212; playing the piano parts off Chuck&#8217;s old records, note for note, like he&#8217;d assimilated every note in his youth and been waiting forty years for the chance to play them with the master&#8230; which I&#8217;m guessing is exactly right.<\/p>\n<p>Chuck responded by getting into the instrumental breaks, trading licks with Toussaint, and they weren&#8217;t the rote licks off his records &#8212; his guitar was out of tune, and they were strange licks, and some folks thought the whole set was a disaster, and I&#8217;m not arguing, but&#8230; Berry and Toussaint were both giants and they were so obviously enjoying themselves that it felt like a privilege to be there.<\/p>\n<p>This version of &#8220;Nadine&#8221; is sort of an accidental tribute to that afternoon, since I do it as a rumba in the style of Snooks Eaglin, who was Toussaint&#8217;s guitarist in the Flamingos, their first band, back in their teens. I&#8217;ve loved Eaglin&#8217;s <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3841  alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Flamingoes49.jpg?resize=341%2C272&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"341\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Flamingoes49.jpg?w=550&amp;ssl=1 550w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Flamingoes49.jpg?resize=300%2C239&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 341px) 100vw, 341px\" \/>playing since I was a kid, but ended up with this arrangement because I couldn&#8217;t play Berry&#8217;s straight-ahead 8-to-the-bar for three minutes without getting cramps in my right hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; This is my favorite Chuck Berry lyric, which is saying a lot. He was a phenomenal writer, with a gift for fitting words together so they scanned, rhymed, and still felt like normal human speech spiked with flashes of wry humor: As I got on a city bus and found a vacant seat I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/nadine\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Nadine (Chuck Berry)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nadine (Chuck Berry) -- Old Friends: A Songobiography -- Elijah Wald<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is my favorite Chuck Berry lyric, which is saying a lot. 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Berry isn't usually thought of as a political or protest songwriter, but that's one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2030\/07\/Rock-Hill-incident.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2030\/07\/Rock-Hill-incident.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2030\/07\/Rock-Hill-incident.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2030\/07\/Rock-Hill-incident.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1111,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/much-monkey-business\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":2},"title":"Too Much Monkey Business (Chuck Berry)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"An early masterpiece from Chuck Berry and one of the most brilliantly composed lyrics I know, with some further thoughts on his genius.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"chuck berry after school","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/chuck-berry-after-school-300x299.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":891,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/no-money-down\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":3},"title":"No Money Down (Chuck Berry\/John Hammond)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"One of Chuck Berry's less familiar masterpieces, going back to his roots in Muddy Waters, which I originally picked up from John Hammond's Newport Festival recording.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"blues at newport","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/blues-at-newport.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5193,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/maybellene\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":4},"title":"Maybellene (Chuck Berry)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 18, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I have never been much interested in \"firsts,\" but if I had to make a nomination for the first definitive rock 'n' roll record, I'd probably go with Chuck Berry's \"Maybellene.\" I know all the other contenders and arguments, but in hindsight most were great rhythm and blues records, while\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Maybellene_-_Billboard_ad_1955-e1715415149834.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1468,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/riot-number-nine\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":5},"title":"Riot in Cell Block Number Nine (The Coasters)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Though my record-buying at Dayton\u2019s focused on prewar blues, there were a handful of notable exceptions \u2013 most significantly, a trio of reissue albums on the Atlantic label featuring the Drifters, the Clovers, and \u2013 far and away most memorably \u2013 the Coasters. 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