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 #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts, while Venus by Frankie Avalon was at #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. more »