Searchin'

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Searchin' by the Coasters ATCO Records

Searchin' was a song written by Leiber and Stoller specifically for The Coasters on the Atco Records label, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. It was released in 1957, and topped the R&B chart for twelve weeks. It reached #3 on the national pop singles chart.[1]

Although the Coasters had previously done well on the R&B charts, it was "Searchin" (along with "Youngblood" on the flip side) that sparked the group's rock and roll fame.[2]

Contents

The lyrics, written by Leiber, use vernacular phrasing. The plot revolves around the singer's determination to find his love wherever she may be, even if he must resort to detective work. The song's notable gimmick was in citing specific law-enforcement figures from popular culture, such as Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan, Sgt. Joe Friday and Sam Spade.

The baritone vocals of The Coasters' lead singer Billy Guy are raw and insistent. Driving the song is a pounding piano rhythm of two bass notes alternating on every second beat.[3]

The theme of the song is searching for love:

Well searching
Yeah I'm gonna searching

The refrain is simple variations of this phrase

Gonna find her, yeah ah, gonna find her

Comedy duo Cheech and Chong recorded a reggae version of the song as The Search Boys, which appears in their 1978 film Up in Smoke. The re-written lyrics in this mention searching for different varieties of marijuana, such as "Maui Wowie".

  1. ^ The Coasters - Charts and Awards. allmusic. Retrieved on 2006-11-07.
  2. ^ Anthony DeCurtis, & James Henke (eds) (1980). The RollingStone: The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and Their Music, (3rd Ed.), New York, N.Y.: Random House, Inc., p. 98. ISBN 0-679-73728-6. 
  3. ^ Gillett, Charlie (1996). The Rise of Rock and Roll, (2nd Ed.), New York, N.Y.: Da Capo Press, p. 73. ISBN 0-306-80683-5. 

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