"Yakety Yak"
An album featuring "Yakety Yak"
Single by The Coasters
B-side	"Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart"
Released	April 1958
Format	45 rpm, 78 rpm
Recorded	March 17, 1958
Genre	Rock
Label	Atco Records 6116
Writer(s)	Jerry Leiber Mike Stoller
Producer	Leiber/Stoller
The Coasters singles chronology
"Gee, Golly" (1958) "Yakety Yak" (1958) "The Shadow Knows" (1958)

"Yakety Yak" is a song written, produced, and arranged by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for The Coasters and released on Atlantic Records in 1958, spending seven weeks as number one on List of number one rhythm and blues hits and a week as number one on the Hot 100 pop list^[1]. This song was one of a string of singles released by The Coasters between 1957 and 1959 that dominated the charts, one of the biggest performing acts of the rock and roll era.^[2]

[edit] Song

The song is a "playlet", a word Stoller used for the glimpses into teenage life that characterized the songs Lieber and Stoller wrote and produced.^[3] The lyrics describe the listing of household chores to a kid, presumably a teenager, the teenager's response (yakety yak) and the parent's retort (don't talk back), an experience very familiar to a white teenager of the day. Leiber has said the Coasters’ portrayed “a white kid’s view of a black person’s conception of white society.”^[2]

The serio-comic street-smart “playlets” etched out by the songwriters were sung by the Coasters with a sly clowning humor. The screaming saxophone of King Curtis filling in hot, honking bursts in the up tempo doo-wop style. The group was openly theatrical in style -- they were not pretending to be expressing their own experience.^[4]

The threatened punishment for not taking out the garbage and sweeping the floor in the song's humorous lyrics:^[5]

"You ain't gonna rock and roll no more,"

And the refrain:

"Yakety yak, Don't talk back."

Beneath the humor, Leiber and Stoller songs often made incisive points about American culture, largely by lampooning racial stereotypes.^[4]

Sha Na Na performed this as part of their set at the original Woodstock Festival

The British novelty duo The Pipkins, whose big hit was "Gimme Dat Ding" in 1970, followed that single with their own vocal version of "Yakety Yak." It was featured on TV's American Bandstand but was rated mediocre by the studio audience, and did not reach the Top 40.^{[citation needed]}

The song has also been mixed & recorded by the controversial 2 Live Crew for the movie Twins.

It has also served as the theme to Clive Anderson's chat-show Clive Anderson Talks Back during the 1990s. And as the opening theme of the movie "The Great Outdoors".^[6]

The song was later featured on Tiny Toon Adventures as a music video starring Plucky Duck.^{[citation needed]}

In 2002, Nickelodeon made a series based on the song named Yakkity Yak.

In Ice Cube's song "Friday" He uses the refrain as one of his lines.

The song also featured on a 1985 ITV advert for Radox bath salts. [1]

In 1990, the song featured slightly altered lyrics in a TV advert for McCain micro chips. [2]

Preceded by "The Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley	Billboard Top 100 number-one single (The Coasters version) July 21, 1958 (one week)	Succeeded by "Patricia" by Perez Prado
Preceded by "All I Have to Do Is Dream" by The Everly Brothers	Billboard R&B Best Sellers in Stores number-one single June 23, 1958 - August 4, 1958 (seven weeks)	Succeeded by "Patricia" by Perez Prado

[edit] Notes

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