Criticism of George Harrison’s Single Rang Out Loud
“Ding Dong, Ding Dong” was the lead single from George Harrison’s fifth solo studio album, Dark Horse, which was released in 1974. Harrison wrote the song to be a sing-along classic to enjoy festivities, and crucially to embrace the future by letting go of the past in welcoming the new year. Critics and fellow musicians alike have speculated that Harrison wanted to follow in the successful footsteps of the British glam rock Christmas tunes of 1973 and 1974 by Wizzard and Slade, but never quite met neither the chart space nor public respect that they did.
While “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” is arguably overly simplistic, its straightforward message of “ring out the old, ring in the new” is an accessible, clear example of Harrison’s eternal optimism. In The Beatles, Harrison was always a ray of sunshine who adopted a sense of grounding in the band. He leaned more towards spirituality rather than the absurdity of psychedelia, offering his listeners to acknowledge and appreciate the beauties within our own reality, reframing it as the ultimate freedom rather than confinement.
Some critics, however, deem the plainness of “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” to be elementary and effortless. The BBC’s John Peel called the tune “repetitive and dull,” and Bob Woffingden of the New Musical Express rather sharply noted that “There’s nothing more disappointing than finding one’s teenage heroes crumbling ineluctably into middle-aged mediocrity.” Perhaps the worst of all was Chris Irwin of Melody Maker labeling Harrison’s NYE track as a “Glorified nursery rhyme.” Harrison admitted that “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” was written quickly, but perhaps not as much as critics thought:
“It took me three minutes, except it took me four years of looking at the thing which was written on the wall at my home, ‘Ring out the old, ring in the new. Ring out the false, ring in the truth,’ before I realized it was a hit song. It makes me laugh because it’s so simple.”
George Harrison Was Fighting Fatigue, Freedom, and Expectations
So yes, Harrison admitted that the core lyrical content is simple and uncomplicated, but the thought that was deemed missing by critics lies in the careful application of such sentiments. Harrison took something meaningful to him, and it fell into a song. Alas, such high standards are to be expected when having been part of the most significant band in Western history.
Harrison was aiming for individuality, and was perhaps the Beatle who deviated the most from their original sound in his more folk-leaning and classically Indian exploring solo releases. But, at times, he seemed to show glimmers of disdain towards the Fab Four, with Harrison famously stating in The Beatles Anthology that “I was losing interest in being fab.” He wanted out, and he wanted distance from the Beatles’ image.
This sentiment rings true in “Ding Dong, Ding Dong,” with the encouragement to look forward to the new year. The verse lyrics of “Yesterday, today was tomorrow / And tomorrow, today will be yesterday” are an almost confusing expression of the meaningless monotony that repetition can present itself as. It could be seen as a dig at the relentless reminders of the ‘60s for him, and could even be a smart, gentle mockery of relentless Beatles reiterations. In that case, the nursery rhyme criticism would then seem to have lost the point of what it was Harrison was aiming for.
The untold story behind a song that never made the cut.
It’s also easy to bash a single for being overly palatable, but it’s not exactly a secret that likability is pretty much the purpose of a single. Music nerds love to attempt to prove their knowledge through pretentious snubs, and, spoiler alert, they forget that it can overshadow understanding of music as something that exists in a cultural context. In the wider context, “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” is an amplification of the tiredness Harrison was feeling in the recording and production of Dark Horse in its entirety.
The album feels somewhat rushed compared to the meticulous detail in Harrison’s previous work. This could, of course, have something to do with the fact that it was written in preparation for Harrison’s North America tour with Ravi Shankar that began in November 1974. This is particularly highlighted in the gruff vocals on the album and the somewhat lackluster production. In itself, this implies a sense of potential complacency, but it could be proof of the opposite. Since the beginning of The Beatles, over a decade before “Ding Dong, Ding Dong,” Harrison was not only constantly making records, but also completely dominating the world of rock and roll. It’s no surprise, really, that his fifth solo studio album was a little tired, he certainly was.
