Big Boys - Chuck Berry

Big Boys - Chuck Berry

3:06

Chuck, 2017

Written by Chuck Berry

Released posthumously just after Berry's 90th birthday, this song features Tom Morello providing some thunderous guitar riffs.  Lyrically, it's familiar Berry territory, with very youthful attitudes tinged with subtle innuendo.  The narrator recalls being a little kid and wondering what those older boys are up to.  Are they drinking?  Getting their drivers' licenses?  Registering for the draft?  No, of course!  It's at a high school dance that he realizes it's girls that make the world go around: "Till the school dance when I first met you / And I learned to party like the big boys do."

I'm a Rocker - Chuck Berry

I'm a Rocker - Chuck Berry

4:35

Back Home, 1970

Written by Chuck Berry

A winking double-entendre of a song in the inimitable Berry style.  Indeed, this is something of a reworking of "Reelin' and Rockin'" in that it features verses about the narrator and his girl counted up by the numbers.  In this case the numbers are songs rather than the hours of a clock, but the concept is the same.  He even reuses some of his lyrics from the live version of "Reelin'": We were out the floor when they played number two / You know she claims she don't, but I know she do."  By 1970, Chuck's risqué lyrics were considered safe to include in the studio recordings: "We were out on the floor when they played number six / I was stone getting firm like a cement mix."

My Mustang Ford - Chuck Berry

My Mustang Ford - Chuck Berry

2:16

Fresh Berry's, 1965

Written by Chuck Berry

One of rock's innumerable car songs, this one made fresh by Berry's dry wit: "I tried to stop in Indianapolis once, and had to back up from Terre Haute / But now I can slow and stop her with my windbreaker parachute."  Eat your heart out, little deuce coupe!  Is it one of Berry's finest songs?  No, it's pretty rote and features a standard, primitive Berry riff.  But it's fun!