2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven with the milestone being celebrated around the world, particularly Germany and Austria. And while we’d love to offer the 5th Symphony or one of Ludwig’s many other masterpieces, for the sake of brevity we’ll serve up instead the rather shorter (and snappier) rock and roll classic, “Roll Over Beethoven.”

Penned and first performed in 1956 by Chuck Berry with what has become arguably the most identifiable riff in rock and roll (later reprised and perfected in “Johnny B. Goode”), the song was ranked No. 97 on Rolling Stone magazine’s top 500 songs of all time in 1997 and has been covered by countless artists from Jerry Lee Lewis to The Beatles and Electric Light Orchestra, the latter of whom included excerpts from the actual 5th Symphony into the song, creating an eight-minute epic that became the British band’s signature piece.

While Roll Over’s sentiment isn’t exactly complimentary to the German composer, imploring him to “roll over” (in his grave) and “tell Tchaikovsky the news” that classical music was being supplanted by rhythm and blues, Berry did reference the classical genius as the embodiment of the genre (it could have been “Move over Mozart”) and even went so far, in one recorded early performance, to speak to Ludwig directly: “Forgive me, Beethoven,” he said, and launched into that famous riff.

Check out Chuck in this performance for the BBC in 1972.