But wait - that doesn't fit. I went to check the album I had downloaded, and sure enough, the song is called "School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)." According to Billboard, the song is called simply "School Day," without the parenthetical (it went to Number Three in 1957). That's how Whitburn reports it. Near as I can tell, some rendition of the singular version was the original title:
At some point along the line, though, the title seems to have changed to "School Days." Wikipedia seems to think that's the official title, with the alternate being "School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)." Plus, see here:
And I hope it's not too much of a spoiler, but the New York Times Magazine seems to think the title is "School Days" as well. Exactly when and why the title changed, that I could not tell you.
"Chuck Berry's Golden Hits" is a re-recording of his Chess sides for Mercury. It's one of the worst records I've ever heard -- Johnnie Johnson gets replaced by an electric piano, which is like replacing the strings on a tennis racket with a sponge. And note that on that album cover "Thirty Days" has a question mark -- WTF? That song is a imperative, not a question.
ReplyDeleteI hope you follow this with an exegesis on the mysterious "s" that was dropped or appended itself to Keith Richard/Keith Richards' name.