"Ding Dong, Ding Dong" is a song by English rock musician George Harrison, written as a New Year's Eve singalong and released in December 1974 on his album Dark Horse. It was the album's lead single in Britain and some other European countries, and the second single, after "Dark Horse", in North America. A large-scale production, the song incorporates aspects of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound technique, particularly his Christmas recordings from 1963. In addition, some Harrison biographers view "Ding Dong" as an attempt to emulate the success of two glam rock anthems from the 1973–74 holiday season: "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade, and Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday". The song became only a minor hit in Britain and the United States, although it was a top-twenty hit elsewhere in the world.
Harrison took the lyrics to "Ding Dong" from engravings he found at his nineteenth-century home, Friar Park, in Oxfordshire – a legacy of its eccentric founder, Frank Crisp. The song's "Ring out the old, ring in the new" refrain has invited interpretation as Harrison distancing himself from his past as a member of the Beatles, and as the singer farewelling his first marriage, to Pattie Boyd. As on much of the Dark Horse album, Harrison's vocals on the recording were hampered by a throat condition, due partly to his having overextended himself on business projects such as his recently launched record label, Dark Horse Records. Recorded at his Friar Park studio, the track includes musical contributions from Tom Scott, Ringo Starr, Alvin Lee, Ron Wood and Jim Keltner.
On release, the song met with an unfavourable response from many music critics, while others considered its musical and lyrical simplicity to be a positive factor for a contemporary pop hit. For the first time with one of his singles, Harrison made a promotional video for "Ding Dong", which features scenes of him miming to the track at Friar Park while dressed in a variety of Beatle-themed costumes. The song still receives occasional airplay over the holiday season. The video appears on the DVD in Harrison's eight-disc Apple Years 1968–75 box set, released in September 2014.
Background and composition
George Harrison purchased the 33-acreHuntley, p. 46. Friar Park estate, in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, in January 1970,Clayson, p. 299. and soon afterwards composed "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)" as a tribute to the property's original owner,George Harrison, p. 208. an eccentric Victorian lawyer and horticulturalist named Frank Crisp.Boyd, pp. 144, 145.Olivia Harrison, p. 268. Harrison included the song on his All Things Must Pass triple album, released in November 1970,Snow, pp. 24–25. by which time he had begun incorporating into his new compositions some of the homilies and aphorisms that Crisp had inscribed around the property, 70 or more years before.Greene, pp. 165, 171. A four-line verse beginning "Scan not a friend with a microscopic glass" particularly resonated with Harrison,George Harrison, p. 37. who eventually used it in his 1975 song "The Answer's at the End".Huntley, p. 123. It similarly took Harrison several years to turn two inspirational lines of verse from carvings in the house's drawing room into song lyrics.Madinger & Easter, p. 444. These lines provided the repeated verse in "Ding Dong, Ding Dong": "Ring out the old, ring in the new" – which he took from the carving to the left of the fireplace – and "Ring out the false, ring in the true" – from the one to the right. In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison credits English poet Lord Tennyson as the original source for these lines.
Authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter describe "Ding Dong" as the "quickest song" that Harrison ever wrote, in terms of time spent on the composition. The words for the song's middle eight – "Yesterday, today was tomorrow / And tomorrow, today will be yesterday" – came from another pair of inscriptions from Crisp's time at Friar Park. Harrison found these lines in what he called "the garden building",George Harrison, p. 280. carved in stone around two matching windows. The only other lyrics in "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" are the song title, repeated four times to serve as its chorus.George Harrison, p. 279. Sung in imitation of a clock chiming,Inglis, p. 46.Allison, p. 140. the chorus lyrics, combined with the message of those of the verse, lend the composition an obvious New Year's theme.Spizer, p. 264. Harrison later described the song as "very optimistic", and suggested: "Instead of getting stuck in a rut, everybody should try ringing out the old and ringing in the new … [People] sing about it, but they never apply it to their lives."
Harrison's other singles from the early 1970s – "My Sweet Lord", "What Is Life", "Bangla Desh" and "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" – were similarly written very quickly.George Harrison, p. 162.Clayson, pp. 322–23.Madinger & Easter, pp. 434, 444. In the case of "Ding Dong" and other tracks from the Dark Horse album, however, author Simon Leng recognises this haste as an example of Harrison abandoning his careful approach to his own music over the 1973–74 period, while remaining a "painstaking craftsman" on his concurrent projects with Ravi Shankar and the vocal duo Splinter.Leng, pp. 144–46, 148, 149. Preceding this change, elements of the British media had ridiculed Harrison's continued association with the Hare Krishna movement,Greene, pp. 200–02. and some music critics had objected to the overtly spiritual content of his 1973 album Living in the Material World.Inglis, p. 43.Clayson, pp. 306, 324. With his marriage to Pattie Boyd all but over by the summer of 1973, Harrison now wanted to be "one of the boys, not a spotlight-grabbing philosopher", according to Leng.Leng, p. 150.
Production
Initial recording Harrison recorded the rhythm track for "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" at his home studio, FPSHOT, in late November 1973,Leng, pp. 147, 153. during the first sessions for Dark Horse.Steven Rosen, "George Harrison", Rock's Backpages, 2008 (subscription required).Kahn, p. 186. Aside from himself, on acoustic guitar, the other musicians on the track were Gary Wright (piano), Klaus Voormann (bass), Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner (both on drums)Leng, p. 153. – all of whom had appeared on Living in the Material World earlier in the year.Lindsay Planer, "George Harrison 'Ding Dong, Ding Dong'", AllMusic (retrieved 19 July 2016). The recording engineer was Phil McDonald.Inner sleeve credits, Dark Horse LP (Apple Records, 1974; produced by George Harrison).
The sessions coincided with a period of domestic turbulence at Friar Park, with Harrison and Boyd both involved in extramarital affairs.Doggett, pp. 208–09. They saw in the 1973–74 New Year with a party at Starr's Tittenhurst Park mansion – which was an "absolute dud" of a night, according to their friend Chris O'Dell, due to Harrison having openly declared his love for Starr's wife, Maureen Starkey, a few days before.O'Dell, p. 266. Boyd recalls that Harrison told her at the party: "Let's have a divorce this year."Boyd, p. 177.
Overdubbing Harrison included a rough mix of "Ding Dong" on a tape he sent to Asylum Records boss David Geffen in January 1974, shortly before travelling to India to visit Shankar and escape his unhappy domestic situation with Boyd.Leng, pp. 153–54, 165.Tillery, p. 112. The purpose of the tape was to find a distributor for albums by Harrison's future Dark Horse Records acts – Shankar Family & Friends by Shankar, and Splinter's The Place I LoveMadinger & Easter, pp. 442, 444. – both of which had started off as Harrison productions for the Beatles' Apple record label.Clayson, p. 346. He added two songs of his own on the tape, with introductory comments about "Ding Dong".Leng, p. 154.
As outlined to Geffen, Harrison went on to adopt the Wall of Sound production technique of his former collaborator, American producer Phil Spector, in his subsequent work on the track.Leng, pp. 153–54.Clayson, pp. 343, 479. Harrison's musical arrangement reflects the influence of the 1963 album A Christmas Gift for You, which contained Spector-produced songs by the Ronettes, the Crystals and Darlene Love,Dennis MacDonald, "Phil Spector A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector", AllMusic (retrieved 28 December 2012). while more recently Spector had co-produced the Apple Records single "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" single, by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Some authors claim that with "Ding Dong", Harrison set out to create a seasonal "classic", in an attempt to match the British chart success of "Happy Xmas" and particularly of Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody"Clayson, p. 343. and Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" – two glam rock singles that were major UK hits over the winter of 1973–74. Leng cites the inclusion on the finished version of "Ding Dong" of harmonium and distorted electric guitars, similar to the Slade hit, while Harrison's use of baritone saxophones, two drummers and tubular bells, together with a female choir, matched the arrangement on "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday", which was heavily influenced by Spector's sound.Williams, p. 17. Having incorporated aspects of Spector's technique on Material World,Schaffner, pp. 159–60.Stephen Holden, "George Harrison, Living in the Material World" , Rolling Stone, 19 July 1973, p. 54 (retrieved 18 July 2016). Harrison's aim with "Ding Dong, Ding Dong", according to Leng, was an update of the Wall of Sound that reflected "the glam rock mood of the day".
Harrison overdubbed call-and-response guitar riffs by Alvin Lee and Ron Wood onto the 1973 rhythm track, as well as his own slide guitars. Further overdubs included baritone and tenor saxophone parts by Tom Scott,Michael Gross, "George Harrison: How Dark Horse Whipped Up a Winning Tour", Circus Raves, March 1975; available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required). and a second acoustic guitar, played by Mick Jones. Harrison also contributed on organ, clavinet and percussion,"George's original [inner] sleeve design for the album Dark Horse" (sample album credits), Dark Horse CD booklet (Apple Records, 2014; produced by George Harrison), p. 8. the last of which included tubular bells (or chimes), sleigh bells and zither.
Harrison's workload ensured that he was rushing to finish Dark Horse in October 1974 before beginning his North American tour with Shankar on 2 November.Madinger & Easter, pp. 442–43.The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 44. Described by Leng as "growled", Harrison's rough-sounding singing on "Ding Dong" shows the effects of a long-standing throat problem. Due to a combination of overexertion and abuse, this condition worsened,David Cavanagh, "George Harrison: The Dark Horse", Uncut, August 2008, pp. 43–44.Mat Snow, "George Harrison: Quiet Storm", Mojo, November 2014, p. 72. leading to him contracting laryngitis as he simultaneously completed his vocals for the album in Los Angeles and rehearsed for the tour.Tillery, p. 114.Leng, p. 115. The female backing singers on the track remain uncredited.Leng, pp. 153, 154.
Release
In the United Kingdom, "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" was released as the lead single from Dark Horse on 6 December 1974 (as Apple R 6002).Castleman & Podrazik, p. 144. The B-side was "I Don't Care Anymore", a non-album trackInglis, p. 49. that Harrison recorded in a single take, specifically for the single.Timothy White, "George Harrison: Reconsidered", Musician, November 1987, p. 65.