Week 6 "Charlie Brown" preformed by The Coasters written by Lieber/Stoller,

Charlie Brown is a fun pop song with Rythm and Blue roots. The lyrics focus around a trouble maker in school "the clown Charlie Brown" who keeps asking why "everybody always picking on me." The lyrics are really repetitive and catchy. "Charlie Brown" was written by songwriting team Lieber and Stoller and appeals to the younger generation evident by the lyrics. Lieber and Stoller wrote a lot of songs focusing on the teen demographic for many famous performers in addition to Coasters, for example, they wrote "Dirty Dirty Feelings" for Elvis.
The song is written in an AABA formate section A is written in a 12 bar blue. The B section is a fun and entertaining instrument interlude with prevalent saxophone. The whole song has a lot of saxophones, drums, and piano beautifully blended in a fun and upbeat accompaniment. The Coasters also performed it really well with great harmonies, their voices blended really well together.
The song was released in 1959 which was over ten years after the Peanut comic strip started. I found this interesting because by this time Charlie Brown is a well-established character among young people. The Charlie Brown in the song is quite the opposite as the one in the comic,  and I found it interesting that the name was chosen. My original thought was it was chosen for rhyming reason however after listening to the song some more this does not really work as one could replace Charlie Brown with many other names and it still is successful.

Comments

  1. Ashlyn LewisOctober 7, 2019 at 6:20 PM

    Honestly I never actually listened to the lyrics of this song. Now that I did it all makes sense. This song is such a great song and easy to move to.

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