Roll Over Beethoven
by Chuck Berry
- 184
- BPM
- Eb major
- Key
- 5B
- Camelot
- 71
- Danceability
- 83
- Acousticness
Chuck Berry wrote "Roll Over Beethoven" because of his sister Lucy, who kept taking the family piano to play classical music when he wanted to play popular songs. A biographer described the song as inspired partly by the rivalry between her classical training and his self-taught, rough-and-ready taste. The lyrics name Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and nod to Louis Jordan's "Early in the Mornin'" and Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes". "Hey diddle diddle" points to Bo Diddley, who played violin. The music the classics are told to step aside for is called rhythm and blues.
Berry recorded it on April 19, 1956, at Universal Recording Corporation in Chicago. Johnnie Johnson played piano, Willie Dixon bass and Melvin Billups drums, with Leonard and Phil Chess producing. Chess Records issued it in May 1956 as single 1626, with "Drifting Heart" on the B-side. It peaked at number two on the Billboard R&B chart and number 29 on the pop chart.
The Beatles and the Rolling Stones both covered it in 1963. The Library of Congress added Berry's single to the National Recording Registry in 2003.
Roll Over Beethoven runs at 184 BPM, the tempo of fast punk, speed metal and hardcore. In classical terms it sits in presto territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.3 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 326 ms. It is in Eb major, Camelot 5B, which shares its notes with C minor and mixes cleanly with Ab major and Bb major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.