Words and Guitar, Vol. 4: Ding Dang

The fourth entry in a weekly column by Terence Cawley. 

First, I want to thank Ben for taking over the column last week; I really enjoyed reading about his early concert memories and heartily recommend you do the same if you haven’t already.

Now, onto business! This coming Monday is my birthday, and my gift to myself is writing about a subject that is very near and dear to my heart:

Top 5 Reasons Why “Ding Dang” is the best Beach Boys song

“Ding Dang” is the seventh song on The Beach Boys’ 21^st (!) studio album Love You, which the band released on April 11, 1977. If you’ve never heard it, fix that now.

Pretty great, right? Personally, I think the song speaks for itself, but on the off-chance that you still want to argue that some Pet Sounds deep cut or “Kokomo” or whatever is superior, allow me to present my case.

5. “Ding Dang” is short, sweet, and to the point.

“Ding Dang” is 57 seconds long. For comparison, if you want to listen to “God Only Knows,” you’ll need to carve out a whole 2 minutes and 51 seconds in your busy schedule. Who has time for that? Get to the point, “God Only Knows”! In that time, I could have listened to “Ding Dang” exactly three times! And I would have had a blast doing it, because:

4. “Ding Dang” is fun.

Oh, your favorite Beach Boys song is “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”? You really relate to Brian Wilson’s “born in the wrong generation” ennui? Well, I would like to politely suggest that you quit yer mopin’ and turn that frown upside down- and I’ve got just the song to help you do it! It’s called “Ding Dang,” it’s the seventh song on The Beach Boys’ 21^st studio album Love You, which the band released on April 11, 1977, and it prominently features the refrain “Ding (ding) dang (woo!)/Ding and a ding dong!” Go ahead and try not to break into an ear-to-ear grin while this bad boy is playing- I dare you.

If “Ding Dang” was only 57 seconds of pure joy and sunshine, that would be enough, but additionally:

3. “Ding Dang” speaks to the human condition.

While many pop musicians have found the ironic juxtaposition of upbeat music to despondent lyrics to be a fruitful combination, few artists have blended the two to such artful effect as The Beach Boys manage on their magnum opus, “Ding Dang.” Why, you might listen to the song dozens of times before becoming aware of the tale of heartbreak and woe at its core!

At first, that refrain of “Ding (ding) dang (woo!)/Ding and a ding dong!” might sound like an exuberant expression of freedom, a Transcendentalist song of praise to the wild, unfathomable beauty contained within the human soul. But dig the lines that follow: “I love a girl, I love her so madly/I treat her so fine but she treats me so badly.” Ah! How the tragedy and comedy bleed into each other until they become one and the same! How did Brian Wilson write such a brilliant song?

2. Brian Wilson wrote “Ding Dang” with The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn after taking amphetamines at McGuinn’s house.

This is true! “Ding Dang” may be short, but it took quite a few chefs to whip up this aural souffle. As Earle Mankey, an engineer on Love You, put it, “everybody who showed up got subjected to ‘Ding Dang’.” Personally, I object to his use of the word “subjected”; in fact, I commend Wilson for his determination to work tirelessly on perfecting this song. I’ve already paraphrased the Love You Wikipedia page enough, so I’ll just send you there for McGuinn’s full quote about this incident. What I wouldn’t have given to be a fly on the wall as Wilson played “Ding Dang” over and over for hours on end…

1. Brian Wilson said so.

“I think the ‘Love You’ album is one of the best we have ever made. My favourites are ‘I Wanna Pick You Up’ and ‘Ding Dang.’ That was a good cut, wasn’t it? Just a very short song, that’s all.” That’s a quote Brian Wilson gave in 2000 for the liner notes of a tribute album called Caroline Now! The Songs of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. No one had the guts to cover “Ding Dang” for that album, but Yo La Tengo covered it for a WFMU fundraiser in a version immortalized on Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics. And what band has better taste than Yo La Tengo?

I’m straying from my main point here, which is itself kind of a stretch. But even if Wilson never directly said that “Ding Dang” is the greatest Beach Boys song, it does seem like the only logical conclusion, doesn’t it?

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Now that we can agree on the total and absolute primacy of “Ding Dang,” the time has come for us to part until next week, when I will argue that “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” is the greatest Who song.