Chuck Berry's "School Days"

A couple weeks ago, Chuck Berry's "School Days" was in my head when I woke up.  Actually, it was just a single line:  "Drop the coin right into the slot."  And I noticed something about it:  both times it occurs in the song, the melody of the line descends, so it's something of a musical representation of the lyric itself:  the coin dropping into the slot.  I'm pretty sure the phrase is G' D Bb G (omitting repeated notes), so it outlines a G minor chord.

Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You"

Last month, I learned the bass part for Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking about You."  I'd recently listened to the Hollies' first five albums for the first time, so I realized that I have four versions of the song.  Along with Berry's original and the Hollies' cover, I had a version by the Yardbirds and a live version by the Beatles.  So I figured I should learn it.

I tried something different and notated the whole thing using my MIDI software.  After a couple weeks of printer difficulties, I printed the notation and indicated some structural way points.  I should mention that I'm a bit unsure of the last two measures of the solo.  I'm pretty sure the figures are different from what they are during the verses, but I don't know if what I have is exact.  I'm pretty confident on the rest though.  Chuck Berry's recording fades out at the end, so there are only about five measures of that last figure.  I continued it for the eight measures that it has in the verses and then resolved it with a C whole note.

Click the images to enlarge them:

Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode"

A couple months ago, I happened to think of the line "Strummin' with the rhythm that the drivers made" in Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."  A few lines before that, it's mentioned that Johnny used to "sit beneath the tree by the railroad track," so I'm assuming that the "drivers" there are steel drivers, hammering in the railroad spikes like John Henry did.

Then it occurred to me that what Johnny B. Goode is doing here is sort of the opposite of a sea shanty.  Sailors sang sea shanties to coordinate work; the rhythm of the song synchronized the workers.  Here, Johnny's taking the rhythm of the workers and - through extracting its rhythm - practicing his strumming.