BLACK DENIM TROUSERS and MOTORCYCLE BOOTS
Words and Music by Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber
Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber helped define the music of the 1950’s and were the leading force in the 1960s songwriting mecca, The Brill Building, in NYC.
There they worked with and co-wrote with relative unknowns like Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Phil Spector, Barry Mann, Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman.
They also provided a songwriting job for a hungry kid named Neil Diamond. If Bill Haley was the supreme deity of Rock and Roll, Leiber and Stoller must have written the commandments!
No songwriting team did more to enrich the rock repertoire in the first decade and only a few have matched their total output since that era.
Both songwriters were born in 1933, Leiber in Baltimore and Stoller in Queens, N.Y. Both of them took piano lessons at an early age.
Oddly they didn’t meet on the east coast.
As teenagers they met in Los Angeles in 1950 and started writing songs together the same afternoon.
From the beginning Leiber handled the lyrics, while Stoller wrote the music.
Although they were a pair of Jewish white boys, both of them were immersed in the culture of the blues.
They hung out in black clubs, had black girlfriends and considered themselves a genuine part of that crowd.
Their breakthrough as songwriters came in 1953 when a singer with the Johnny Otis Band named Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton cut the Leiber-Stoller tune "Hound Dog."
Invited to a rehearsal, Leiber and Stoller ended up producing the recording session as well. "Hound Dog" shot to the top of the R&B charts and Leiber and Stoller were on their way.
He wore black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
He had a hopped-up 'cicle that took off like a gun
That fool was the terror of Highway 101
Well, he never washed his face and he never combed his hair
He had axle grease embedded underneath his fingernails
On the muscle of his arm was a red tattoo
A picture of a heart saying, "Mother, I love you"
He had a pretty girlfriend by the name of Mary Lou
But he treated her just like he treated all the rest
And everybody pitied her and everybody knew
He loved that doggone motorcycle best
He wore black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
He had a hopped-up 'cicle that took off like a gun
That fool was the terror of Highway 101
Mary Lou, poor girl, she pleaded and she begged him not to leave
She said, "I've got a feeling if you ride tonight, I'll grieve"
But her tears were shed in vain and her every word was lost
In the rumble of an engine and the smoke from his exhaust
Then he took off like the Devil, there was fire in his eyes!!
He said, "I'll go a thousand miles before the sun can rise."
But he hit a screamin' diesel that was California-bound"
And when they cleared the wreckage, all they found
Was his black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
But they couldn't find the 'cicle that took off like a gun
And they never found the terror of High way 101
