Something that's perhaps overlooked about Chuck Berry is the social commentary that appeared in his lyrics.
He wrote and recorded "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" in 1956 when it was unheard of for a record with lyrics like that to be heard on the airwaves:
Arrested on charges of unemployment,
he was sitting in the witness stand
The judge's wife called up the district attorney
Said you free that brown eyed man
You want your job you better free that brown eyed man
Flying across the desert in a TWA,
I saw a woman walking across the sand
She been a walkin' thirty miles en route to Bombay
To get a brown eyed handsome man
Her destination was a brown eyed handsome man
Way back in history three thousand years
In fact every since the world began
There's been a whole lot of good women sheddin' tears
For a brown eyed handsome man
It's a lot of trouble was brown eyed handsome man
Beautiful daughter couldn't make up her mind
Between a doctor and a lawyer man
Her mother told her darlin' go out and find yourself
A brown eyed handsome man
Just like your daddy, he's a brown eyed handsome man
Milo Venus was a beautiful lass
She had the world in the palm of her hand
But she lost both her arms in a wrestling match
To get brown eyed handsome man
She fought and won herself a brown eyed handsome man
Two, three count with nobody on
He hit a high fly into the stand
Rounding third he was headed for home
It was a brown eyed handsome man
That won the game; it was a brown eyed handsome man
He had to be sly with his lyrics, but the meaning was there. Beat James Brown by 12 years.
And "Nadine":
I saw her from the corner when she turned and doubled back
And started walkin' toward a coffee colored Cadillac
I was pushin' through the crowd tryin' to get to where she's at And I was campaign shouting like a southern diplomat
"Promised Land" makes subtle reference to the Freedom Riders in Alabama:
We had motor trouble it turned into a struggle
Half way 'cross Alabam
And that 'hound broke down and left us all stranded
In downtown, Birmingham
He was ahead of his time in many ways.