Purists would say that it’s Johnny B. Goode, or Maybelline, or Rock And Roll Music, or Sweet Little Sixteen, or Roll Over Beethoven, or Brown Eyed Handsome Man and they would be right. When it comes to the question of Chuck Berry’s greatest song, there is no correct answer. When it comes to Chuck Berry’s greatness, there is no question whatsoever. Sure Elvis Presley bears the moniker of The King but even Elvis knew at a very early stage in his career that the title of the one true ‘King of Rock and Roll’ belonged to Chuck. Don’t believe me? Listen to the joyful reverence in his voice as he discusses Chuck on the Million Dollar Quartet tapes of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash as captured in Sun Studios in December of 1956.

With Carl Perkins strumming an acoustic guitar they try to recall the particular lyrics of Brown Eyed Handsome Man, all the while marveling at the cleverness and clarity with which Chuck Berry sets a scene. They manage this without the aid of Google and Internet lyric sites instead relying on each other’s prompts to piece together Chuck’s wit and wisdom. All the while laughing and bantering the same way young men do to this very day over their favorite classic movie lines and lyrics. It is clear that each one of them is a Berry fan while at the same time realizing that their northern competitor is going to be tough to best.

Carl Perkins, “Oh I like to, like to, like to hear him sing Brown Eyed Handsome Man…”

Elvis, “Uh, uh, somethin’, sheddin’ tears for a… Milo Venus was a beautiful lass she had the world in the palm of her hand, Yeah! She lost both her arms in a wrestling match to get a brown eyed handsome man, she fought and won herself a brown eyed handsome man”

Jerry Lee Lewis, “Ha, ha, ha…”

Carl Perkins, “How about Too Much Monkey Business? You ever get on that?”

Elvis, “Eh, its alright but I like this one, I like this one better…”

Jerry Lee Lewis, “Oh, that’s it man, that sounds fine too, that Brown Eyed Handsome Man…that’s a rolling stone ha, ha.

Carl Perkins, “When he said a flyin’ cross the desert in a TWA, I saw a woman walking cross the sand, walking thirty miles en route to Bombay to meet a brown eyed handsome man, her destination was a brown eyed handsome man…”

Carl Perkins, “That verse where that woman lost BOTH her arms in a wrestling match…”

Jerry Lee Lewis, “Yeah man, she fought and WON herself ha, ha, ha…”

Carl Perkins, “ You oughta hear some of his stuff, sittin’ around boy, I just come off a tour with this guy, Chuck Berry? Man he just sat down behind that stage and just…”

The discussion of Chuck Berry ends there, in something like flabbergasted envy of the impact of the man. It is a hell of a thing to listen to these gifted musicians, songwriters and singers downright fawning over Berry’s way with words and phrasing. It is pure delight to listen to four southern white boys in the middle of the 1950s, at the ignition spark point of what would become iconic careers for each, speaking with such admiration and wonder about the shimmering, simplistic brilliance of just one specific Chuck Berry tune.

As for Let It Rock, the title alone may be the most succinct summation of what a rock and roller demands of the music. Cut with the bullshit and let it rock! Was anyone better at getting down to it and finding the groove quicker than Chuck Berry? Let It Rock kicks off with that same familiar Berry riff that begins so many of his songs. You can almost hear that gently chiding, commandeering voice of his in the tone of his guitar saying something like, “Don’t waste my time baby, just play that thing.” Let It Rock is essentially an abbreviated reworking of Johnny B. Goode, which begs the question, why not just declare Johnny B. Goode, the greatest Chuck Berry song ever and be done with it? Well, truth be told it probably is the greatest Chuck Berry song but I like Let It Rock. I like the barreling threat of the locomotive, I like the fact that it’s a hard working song about working hard and then slacking off and I like the fact that it efficiently kicks more ass in 109 seconds than most songs do at twice the length. The song comes and goes with Doppler rapidity in about the same time it takes a fast train to get through a crossing. It travels so fast that if you blink you might miss it. Like a bird flying into a window or a bolt out of the blue or a walk-off home run while you were ordering a beer, it strikes you suddenly and leaves you slack jawed wondering what just happened?

It is a movie in my head that I’ve watched a hundred times and know so well I can see every scene as it plays out. There’s Chuck, all pearly whites and pencil thin mustache, sweating and wailing in that heightened tone as he tells the story.

In the heat of the day down in Mobile Alabama
working on the railroad with the steel driving hammer
I gotta get some money buy some brand new shoes
tryin’ to find somebody take away these blues
“She don’t love me” hear them singing in the sun
Payday coming when my work is all done

Right off the bat you’re feeling the heat. What kind of heat? Midday, summertime in Mobile Alabama swinging a nine-pound hammer kind of heat; that’s a very specific brand of hot. Also, you can find just about anyone at all to rhyme shoes and blues but you’ll never hear them sung that way again.

The song has barely begun and we are already being treated to a Johnnie Johnson sugary sweet, signature rollicking and rolling piano interlude accompanied nicely by Chuck’s pleasantly nuanced fills, Willie Dixon’s driving bass beat and some additional rhythmic chugging by none other than Matt “Guitar” Murphy, who you may know better as Aretha Franklin’s soulfully henpecked husband in the classic The Blues Brothers movie’s equally classic “Think” sequence.

The way Chuck draws out the Well at the beginning of the next verse seems reckless considering the overall brevity of the song and the looming catastrophe it is trying to avert. But when you’re finally relaxing after a hot day working in the sun and have a dice game going with payday money, it would seem you have all the time in the world.

Well, in the evening when the sun is sinking low
all day I been waiting for the whistle to blow
Sitting in a tee pee built right on the tracks
rolling them bones ‘til the foreman come back
Pick up you belongings boys and scatter about
we’ve got an off-schedule train comin’ two miles out

So many a guitar player has mimicked a train’s whistle and clatter on countless other songs and while I don’t believe there is anything technically brilliant about Chuck’s approach I am certain no one else has ever played the sound with such sublime shoulder shrugging, leg splitting effectiveness. And so comes the next urgent verse and Chuck’s now in such a hurry that he sings what I suppose should have been “loud and long” as “long and long”. So be it, just like in the song it’s time to pack it up and collect the money in that notorious Berry style.

Everybody’s scrambling and jumping around
picking up the money, tearing the tee pee down
Foreman wants to panic, ’bout to go insane 
trying to get the workers out the way of the train
Engineer blows the whistle long and long
can’t stop the train, have to let it roll on

Roll on indeed; it’s time to ride that runaway train to the next town and the next wad of cash. The song fades away down the track with more tinkling piano and Chuck’s sweet spot notes waving like a lantern on the back of a caboose. A minute forty-nine, damn that’s astounding! But when you are blessed with the ability to get more out of less, to make genius look effortless, to not waste an ounce of energy or sweat on superfluous exertion, I suppose than you can make the trains run on time. It is a ballsy thing to be succinct. It demands confidence and clarity and Chuck Berry lacked neither. I’m grateful we had Chuck as long as we did and I’m happy so many of us revel in his rhythm then, now and forever.

LET IT ROCK   Words and music by CHUCK BERRY