The Coasters had been an up and coming vocal R&B group who had previously charted when both sides of their double-sided single "Young Blood" / "Searchin'" managed to make the the US Top 10. (Paired together as a single entry in the UK, it just barely cracked the Top 30 but they still managed to make an impact: both songs would end up being recorded by The Beatles for the BBC and their ill-fated 1962 Decca audition respectively) Simply put, they're both bangers. It's easy to imagine the public being split over which one they preferred since there's very little to choose from.
All four Coasters possessed tremendous voices but they were a vocal group from the fifties so of course they all did. What really set them apart was their humour. Studying the lyrics to both "Young Blood" and "Searchin'" you might not necessarily deliver them with tongue-in-cheek but they made the wise decision to do just that. Both would be a good deal creepier and more problematic without them treating the material as a joke. Writers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller then apparently decided to run with it and give The Coasters a bona fide comedy song. "Yakety Yak" proved to be memorable even if the gag wore thin awfully fast. Better yet, it was a massive hit and one that is fondly remembered to this day — though not so much by me but I am one of those grumpy sorts who likes his comedy funny and his music not so annoying.
Leiber and Stoller then chose to push their luck with their next offering to one of their cash cow acts, the similarly prat fall-esque "Charlie Brown". If you had assumed — as I would have — that it would have been unlikely that a second comedy song would do as well as their first then you'd be dead wrong — indeed, as dead wrong as I would have been. The public ate it up giving them yet another megahit. But while "Yakety Yak" remains a staple of oldies radio/playlists and will even crop up in the odd movie, its follow-up hasn't had the legs to come even close to such a legacy.
Though there are apparently those out there who are convinced it's all about the lead character from the Peanuts comic strip, even a casual listen to the zany tune ought to rule out these claims. High octane antics weren't typically found in the adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Pigpen and the rest; instead, they were much more laid back, just the sort of cartoon that merited a cool jazz soundtrack. But I might be getting ahead of myself here: I don't think they were making Peanuts cartoons back in the fifties and it was just a newspaper comic strip. The point still stands, however: Charlie Brown was a neurotic boy who never stopped fretting about shit he had no control over and his "friends" were always mocking him for ruining everything. Jesus, those Peanuts kids sucked.
What Charlie Brown didn't do was all that "writing on the wall" and "pooping in the hall" that The Coasters claimed - and that's because the song isn't about the curiously bald nine-year-old with the yellow and black t-shirt. In fact, it's about a troublemaker with the same name. Or an alleged troublemaker. As the tall, gawky kid in school, I typically got into trouble for stuff instigated by those short devilish little shits who I always somehow befriended. Perhaps this Charlie guy is misunderstood or was just always in the wrong place at the wrong time and was surrounded by those horrible teachers who'd jump to conclusions rather than try to find out what actually happened. Damn, this bloody song really touched a nerve. I'd better wrap things up.
Despite what I said above about the comedy not really hitting the mark, "Charlie Brown" is okay. Less irritating than "Yakety Yak" but not in the league of either "Young Blood" or "Searchin'". There's a reason The Beatles never bothered with it and I don't think it was all down to John Lennon being something of a Charlie Brown himself. They had gone to the well once too often but it still worked out. At least, for now. (Oh, and I am aware that the line is "goofin' in the hall" not "pooping..."; I misheard it and like all good monedgreens in pop, I prefer mine to the real thing)
Score: 5
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Can Con
I must confess that I'm a little ashamed as to my ignorance of some of these Canadian recording artists of the early rock 'n' roll era. Looking him up, it seems like I ought to be as familiar with Tommy Ambrose as I am fellow 'Tommy' entertainer Tommy Hunter. How have I not heard of him? I guess hosting your show that followed immediately after Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights went a long way. Though a Top 30 hit on the CHUM charts in the spring of '59, "The Magic of You" is currently unavailable on YouTube but b-side "The End of the World" is present for some reason. Ambrose sounds like yet another Elvis wannabe of the era; hopefully it wouldn't take him long to come to the realization that his future lay elsewhere. Perhaps we'll encounter him again in this space before long once he ended up giving his music a good rethink.
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