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.
The Norwegian vocal group Bjelleklang covered the song on their album YppeRu’ dOnK in 1994. The song was called Gummihatt which is Rubberhat in english.

Chart history

The song peaked at number 6 on the UK Chart in March/April 1970. It reached #7 in Canada, #9 U.S Pop and #20 U.S. Easy Listening. It did best in New Zealand, where it reached number 1.

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Song profile

"Gimme Dat Ding" 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.
In the UK, interest in the song resurfaced in the 1990s when the Maynards confectionery company used it in a popular television commercial for their 'Just Fruits' fruit pastille and fruit gum range between 1992 and 1994, which led to the song reappearing on radio playlists during that era. In 1997, Dairylea also used the song in two advertisements in the UK.