Coasters - Charlie Brown

About "Charlie Brown"

"Charlie Brown" is a popular Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller song that was a top-ten hit for the Coasters in the spring of 1959 (released in January, coupled with "Three Cool Cats", Atco 6132). It went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, while "Venus" by Frankie Avalon was at No. 1. It was the first of three top-ten hits for the Coasters that year. It is best known for the phrase, "Why's everybody always pickin' on me?"

According to Jerry Leiber, "After 'Yakety Yak', I thought we could write every Coasters song in ten minutes. Man, was I wrong! When we tried to write a follow-up, Mike had lots of musical ideas, but I was stuck. … After nearly a week of agonizing, a simple name came to mind. 'Charlie Brown.' Then, 'He's a clown, that Charlie Brown.' Mike already had a skip-along melodic template in place. He helped me with the story and suddenly a character, played by Dub Jones, stepped out on stage."

Towards the end of the bridge of the song, the words "Yeah, You!" were recorded at half speed, so the voices would play back at a higher pitch. King Curtis plays the tenor saxophone during the instrumental and the fade out of the record. The best-known version is in mono. However, a stereo rendering (with slightly different vocals) was released on the LP Atlantic History of Rhythm & Blues, Vol. 4, along with several other rare stereo versions of late 1950s Atlantic hits.