{"id":6241,"date":"2026-09-05T07:15:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T11:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=6241"},"modified":"2026-09-05T09:03:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T13:03:59","slug":"no-particular-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/no-particular-place\/","title":{"rendered":"No Particular Place to Go (Chuck Berry)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"No Particular Place to Go (Chuck Berry)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0vdyDNLg7TQ?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>Still on a rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll kick, celebrating my new <a href=\"https:\/\/elijahwald.com\/rocknrollvsi.html\"><em>Rock &#8216;n&#8217; Roll: A Very Short Introduction<\/em><\/a>, this is another favorite from the brilliant Mr. Berry, my nominee for the greatest rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll songwriter of all time. I&#8217;ve said all this before, but he had an incredible gift for fitting words together in ways that sounded completely natural while scanning <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-6244\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Berry-No-Particular-Place.jpg?resize=217%2C214&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"217\" height=\"214\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Berry-No-Particular-Place.jpg?w=400&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Berry-No-Particular-Place.jpg?resize=300%2C296&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 217px) 100vw, 217px\" \/>and rhyming so easily that a lot of people don&#8217;t realize how incredibly difficult that is. I&#8217;ve given that rap in my post about &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/nadine\/\">Nadine<\/a>,&#8221; and it goes for pretty much all of his classic work.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve already posted a bunch of Berry&#8217;s songs: &#8220;Nadine,&#8221; of course, and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/maybellene\/\">Maybellene<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/memphis\/\">Memphis,<\/a>&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/no-money-down\/\">No Money Down<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/much-monkey-business\/\">Too Much Monkey Business<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/promised-land\/\">Promised Land<\/a>&#8230;&#8221; I know a few others, and will eventually get around to those as well. Like I say, I think he was the greatest, and one mark of great songwriting is that his compositions stick in my head &#8212; there are songs of his that I never learned, never sang, but if I think about them, I realize that I remember every word.<\/p>\n<p>I think this is one of those. I&#8217;m not sure; maybe I sat down and learned it at some point, but I rarely sang it, even for my own amusement &#8212; and amusement is definitely the point.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s in the general category of Berry&#8217;s car songs, following &#8220;Maybelline&#8221; and &#8220;No Money Down,&#8221; but written in the 1960s, while he was in prison on a Mann Act conviction. Though he tends to be associated with the previous decade, Berry was at the top of his game in that period and the best of those songs &#8212; &#8220;Nadine,&#8221; &#8220;Promised Land,&#8221; &#8220;You Never Can Tell,&#8221; &#8220;It Wasn&#8217;t Me,&#8221; and this one &#8212; have an imaginative flair and verbal intricacy that went beyond his earlier hits.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-6245 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Berry-autobiography.jpg?resize=198%2C281&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Berry-autobiography.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Berry-autobiography.jpg?resize=212%2C300&amp;ssl=1 212w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/>In his autobiography &#8212; a display of Berry&#8217;s inimitably quirky prose, which he wrote during another prison term &#8212; he describes himself at that point as &#8220;thirty-five years old, really set back, out of contact, feeling more black but still intact, and determined to make the best of it.&#8221; He kept busy taking college classes, wrote a bunch of new songs, and despite the ugliness of his situation, the writing had a brilliant lightness and humor.<\/p>\n<p>He got out in 1963 and was shortly releasing new records, first &#8220;Nadine,&#8221; which announced his return and did pretty well, then this one, which cracked the Top 10. It&#8217;s a funny, self-deprecating story with a classic Berry beat, and I&#8217;m thinking I should perform it more often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Still on a rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll kick, celebrating my new Rock &#8216;n&#8217; Roll: A Very Short Introduction, this is another favorite from the brilliant Mr. Berry, my nominee for the greatest rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll songwriter of all time. I&#8217;ve said all this before, but he had an incredible gift for fitting words together in ways &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/no-particular-place\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">No Particular Place to Go (Chuck Berry)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - 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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\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\/2018\/06\/Flamingoes49.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Flamingoes49.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Flamingoes49.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5193,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/maybellene\/","url_meta":{"origin":6241,"position":1},"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":1111,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/much-monkey-business\/","url_meta":{"origin":6241,"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":4863,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/promised-land\/","url_meta":{"origin":6241,"position":3},"title":"Promised Land (Chuck Berry\/Freedom Riders)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 17, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been playing Chuck Berry's \"Promised Land\" for years, and always loved it, but I recently learned that it had a deeper level of meaning, related to a historic moment in the Civil Rights movement. 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":6196,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/great-balls-of-fire\/","url_meta":{"origin":6241,"position":4},"title":"Great Balls of Fire!","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 25, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"I've got a new book out, a history of rock 'n' roll in Oxford's \"Very Short Introduction\" series, and it prompted me to revive a bunch of songsI've known since my early teens but rarely perform, since I rarely have a rock 'n' roll band or vocal group handy. This\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\/2026\/07\/Jerry-Lee-Lewis-e1784990617252.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5446,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/north-country-girl\/","url_meta":{"origin":6241,"position":5},"title":"Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"November 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another one I've known forever, and don't even remember learning. It's kind of an anomaly in Dylan's oeuvre, since\u00a0 he tended to be better at break-up songs, and in particular nasty break-up songs (\"Don't Think Twice,\" for example), than at love songs. I've already posted one noteworthy exception\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\/10\/Echo-Helstrom-e1730414234748.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6241"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6306,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6241\/revisions\/6306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}