The Cadillac pulled up ahead of the Ford
The Ford got hot and wouldn’t do no more
It then got cloudy and started to rain
I tooted my horn for a passin’ lane
The rainwater blowin’ all under my hood
I knew that I was doin’ my motor good
Maybellene
Is rain water blowin’ all under your hood really a good thing? Would it make a difference in the performance of a '56 V8 Ford? Or would it muck up the engine?
I trust Chuck Berry in most matters, but that line always bothered me.
The lyrics always made sense to me because vapour lock was endemic with early to mid '50s Fords, IIRC. A home remedy was to pour cold water onto the fuel line.
The rain on the radiator will result in evaporation, which cools the radiator..
The little bit of rain on the motor wouldn’t do much.
Rain on the spark plug leads muck it up, makes it miss/stall.. but I guess the warm air blowing around the engine bay dries the rain up .. when it evaporates it cools the air ..
I love Chuck’s music, but his lyrics often didn’t make any sense. One example from A Brown-eyed Handsome Man:
If the count was actually 2-3 (two balls and three strikes) the guy would have already struck out. It would have been just as easy for him to say 3-2 (three balls and two strikes) indicating a full count, but he didn’t really care about the lyrics much.
I always thought Chuck was being sarcastic about the rain water doing his engine good.
And if we can excuse Arthur Conan Doyle for mixing up the locations of Watson’s jezail bullet injury, we can let Chuck Berry off the hook for a minor confusion about baseball counts.
I did too but the next verse makes it clear that rain on the engine cooled it down, adding power and allowing Chuck to catch Maybellene, in her Cadillac, at the top of the hill.
My instinct says putting cold water on a hot engine block can do no good, and might crack it. But opinion here so far seems to say otherwise.
I’ve always noticed that too. Explanations that have ran through my mind:
~Chuck grew up in the 30’s, maybe things were different back then
~Being black, he had three strikes against him just getting to the plate (Berry was an angry man and that song has a bit of a black pride vibe)
~Maybe the ref cut him some slack… He was a brown-eyed handsome man after all
Makes sense to me. If the flathead was “hot and wouldn’t do no more” and a light rain lowered the air temp and also cooled down the low-pressure radiator and helped those two cheeseball water pumps cool the sand-packed block, sure it’ll help. A little.
I sincerely doubt rain at speed is going to get on the engine - or much past the radiator - enough to mess up the electrics. Puddle, yes, high speed, no.
Personal research indicates he and Maybelline were well under 100 mph.
I’ve never heard that the order of giving balls and strikes has changed.
While that song definitely has a black pride/“black is beautiful” message, and that stanza is likely a reference to Jackie Robinson, Chuck didn’t really put a lot of thought in to his lyrics:
Again, he could just as easily have said “Venus de Milo” (and on the record he pronounces it “Marlo Venus”). It’s not like the number of syllables in each line is fixed: they vary between 7 and 12. Chuck is talking the lyrics more than singing.
Oh really! “Milo Venus” was just a stylistic flourish, like saying “Thunderbird Ford” instead of Ford Thunderbird. Chuck gets to do that; by no means did he put no thought into his lyrics. His explanation of how Milo Venus lost her arms is typically droll.
The point is, Chuck cared more about how the words sounded than whether they were accurate. So “I knew that was doing my motor good” doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It could also be just another “stylistic flourish.”
That said, I always thought the phrase was meant sarcastically. It’s interesting that under some circumstances water under the hood could be a good thing. (Especially since I once cracked the block of my Jeep when water hit it when it got stuck while fording a river.)
This is absolutely true. Chuck cared very much how the words sounded, and he was definitely trying to create a picture and a feeling in the listener’s mind. And for that, the sound and feel (for want of a better word) of the words are far more important than actual factual accuracy.
The rhythm of the words is perfect. They actually scan. And the alliteration is great. Listen to the second line of that verse. The hard "C"s of "coffee colored Cadillac hit exactly right on the beat. And “campaign shouting like a southern diplomat” may not be strictly descriptive of anything, but it sure does paint a picture.
I’d rate Chuch as one of the two best rock lyricists there ever were (the other one being Ray Davies).
