Gimme Dat Ding

"Gimme Dat Ding" is a 1970 popular UK song, of the novelty type, sung by "one-hit wonder" The Pipkins, and written and composed by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood. Released as a single, it is the title selection of an album which The Pipkins recorded and released on the EMI Columbia Records label. The song also appeared on the compilation of the same name, which The Pipkins shared with another up-and-coming UK group The Sweet. It has also been included on many other compilation albums. The song was arranged by Big Jim Sullivan.

Song profile

"Gimme Dat Ding"^[1] is a call-and-response duet between a deep, gravelly voice, that of Tony Burrows, and a high tenor, that of Roger Greenaway. The voices are said to represent a piano and a metronome. The gravelly voice is also thought to be an imitation of Arte Johnson's recurring dirty old man character "Tyrone F. Horneigh" on the NBC-TV show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, of Popeye the Sailor Man, of Wolfman Jack, or of the 1930s and 1940s film actor Eugene Pallette.

When Hammond and Hazlewood wrote and composed "Gimme Dat Ding," it was one selection from their musical sequence "Oliver in the Overworld," which formed part of the British children's show, Little Big Time, hosted by Freddie and the Dreamers; this narrated a surreal story of a little boy seeking the parts to mend his grandfather clock. The lyrics of the song relate to this story, the song being sung by a metronome who has been expelled by the Clockwork King; the "ding" has been stolen from the metronome by the "Undercog." The original version of the song, as performed by Freddie Garrity, was released on the album Oliver in the Overworld in 1970.

"Gimme Dat Ding" was used (as Gimme Dat Ring) by Coca Cola to advertise their new Ring Pull Cans in the early 1970s. The song reached #7 in Canada.

In Australia versions by Frankie Davidson and Maple Lace were released to compete with the version by the Pipkins.^[2]

The tune was one of several used as musical accompaniment to time-lapse slapstick scenes on The Benny Hill Show, along with "Yakety Sax," "Mah Na Mah Na," and others.^[3]

In 1997 a cover of the song was used in adverts for Dairylea.

In March 2007, a cover version of "Gimme Dat Ding" received much publicity in Australia when the National Australia Bank used the track as background to its television advertisement for the Australian Rules Football Auskick program for junior footballers. The television advertisement is known as "Kick to Kick" and is available for viewing online^[4] It also featured in the 1990s TV comedy/drama Ally McBeal.^[5]

A live version of "Gimme Dat Ding," performed at the Fremont Town Hall, appears on the album Shaggs' Own Thing by The Shaggs, consisting of the sisters Dorothy, Helen and Betty Wiggin. In 2011, the track was used on a commercial for Pukka Pies in the UK.

References