A question for musos out there, and fans of Fifties music in particular, prompted by a visit to a Fifties Diner today: The song Charlie Brown, by The Coasters, features a deep bass voice for the eponymous character, and a particular pattern of speech, when he says the tagline Whys evrybody always pickin on me?. Listen for yourselves: https://youtube/watch?v=_UnPzp2lmNk Is this, as Glenn Altschuler stated in All Shook Up: How Rock n Roll Changed America an example of how Rock N Roll songs have presented stereotypes of blacks as comic figures (see page 57). The Coasters were, of course, a black group. They wouldve experienced the prejudice of Fifties America on a daily basis. Charlie Brown may have been so named because he was brown skinned, and his always being picked on could be a reference to this racial prejudice. However, the song makes it clear that his own behaviour is the cause of his persecution, so perhaps its ironic. Were they feeding into that prejudice with a stereotypical character in order to sell a record? Or being satirical? Or are we all reading into it? Or, examining the lyrics of the second verse in particular: Thats him on his knees I know thats him Yeah, from 7 come 11 Down in the boys gym. Does this verse suggest that Charlie Browns persecution for being gay? In the book Hound Dog: The Leiber & Stoller Autobiography, Mike Stoller tells of Cornell Gunter, as a possible autobiographical source for the character: ...you wouldnt exactly call Cornell macho. The minute he opened his mouth, you knew he was gay. In spite of this, he apparently had an 18-inch neck, considerable strength, and once threw an assailant over a pickup truck! Perhaps this might explain the references to fe-fi-fo-fum and its giant associations which open the song... Perhaps not. A contributor to the SongFacts forum suggests You can hear this slight lisp in the line. I cant hear it, myself. I personally hear no lisp, and I think that if they wanted the character to be obviously, stereotypically gay, they wouldnt have given the line to the deep bass singer. Discuss.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 22:52:24 +0000
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