An Introduction to America’s Music

426 PART 4 | SINCE WORLD WAR II

timing section text comments

0:00 introduction One bar of repeated triplet chords sets the

tone, followed by 1-bar break that is fi lled

with the pickup notes that begin chorus 1.

0:02 chorus 1 Up in the morning and out to

school...

Each short vocal phrase is answered by

a response in the guitar, over a chugging

beat in the rhythm section.

0:24 chorus 2 Ring, ring goes the bell... Each vocal chorus begins with pickup

notes sung during a break in bar 12 of the

previous chorus.

0:46 chorus 3 Soon as three o’clock rolls

around...

1:08 chorus 4 Drop the coin right into the slot...

1:30 chorus 5 Guitar solo: a series of blues licks

emphasizing repeated notes.

1:52 chorus 6 Drop the coin right into the slot... Repeat of chorus 4.

2:14 chorus 7 Hail, hail rock and roll...

songwriter: Chuck Berry

date: 1956

performers: Chuck Berry, vocal and

electric guitar; Johnnie Johnson, piano;

Willie Dixon, bass; Fred Below, drums

genre: rock and roll

meter: duple

form: strophic 12-bar blues

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

• 12-bar blues structure


• emphatic rhythm to encourage dancing


• teen-oriented lyrics


• prominent blues-based electric guitar
  playing

CD 3.15 Listening Guide 17.4 “School Day” CHUCK BERRY

Listen & Refl ect

1. How do Berry’s vocal and guitar styles compare with those of Robert Johnson (see LG 14.1)?
   Likewise, how does his singing with a band compare with Wynonie Harris’s (see LG 17.3)?


2. What arguments could be made for and against the following statement? “When the
   thirty-year-old Chuck Berry wrote a song about high school, he was selling out by merely
   pandering to the teen market instead of expressing his own artistic ideas.”

172028_17_412-439_r3_sd.indd 426 23/01/13 10:58 AM