Songfacts®:

• Chuck Berry often told stories in his songs, and because his target audience was teenagers, they often had to do with school, cars, or going on a date. This one falls in both the cars and date categories. It finds Berry driving around with his girl with no destination - a great opportunity to make a move. He stops so they can get out and go for a walk, but is thwarted when her safety belt won't release. He spends the rest of the night driving back home, trying to get that darn belt to work.
• In the years before this song was released (1962-1963), Berry literally had no place to go - he was in prison for transporting a minor across state lines. He was one of the biggest hitmakers of the 1950s, but those hits dried by the end of the decade, and his prison stint took him completely off the radar. In 1964 he staged a bit of a comeback with "Nadine (Is It You?)," "You Never Can Tell," and "No Particular Place To Go." He hit another dry spell but in 1972 landed a #1 hit with the novelty song "My Ding-a-Ling."
• "No Particular Place To Go" was released in May 1964 backed by the instrumental "Liverpool Drive," and is instantly recognizable as a Berry composition with his distinctive, clean cut guitar style. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England
• This song shows up in movies and TV shows from time to time, usually for comic effect. Examples:
  
  Cadillac Records (2008)
  Snow Dogs (2002)
  The Last Days of Frankie the Fly (1996)
  Sgt. Bilko (1996)
  Married... with Children ("Old Insurance Dodge" - 1993)
  The Facts of Life ("Tootie Drives" - 1985)
• Long before The Beach Boys did it, Chuck Berry put "Kokomo" into a song lyric, heard here in the lines:
  
  No particular place to go
  So we parked way out on the Kokomo
  
  There is a Kokomo in Indiana, but most likely Berry was just making up a name for an out-of-the-way place that rhymes with "go."