About The Song
Written and recorded by The Everly Brothers in 1960, Cathy’s Clown was the first song The Everly Brothers released on the Warner Brothers label, and the first song released by Warners in the UK. It sold eight million copies worldwide, spending five weeks at number 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and one week on the R&B chart. The song spent seven weeks at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart in May and June 1960, and was the Everly Brothers’ biggest-selling single and their third and final U.S. number 1 hit. Billboard ranked it as the number 3 song of the year for 1960.
Inspired by one of Don Everly’s ex-girlfriends, this song is about a boyfriend that Cathy dumps. He tries to be strong, but everyone knows him as “Cathy’s Clown” because she treated him so bad.
Don Everly did the arrangement, an unorthodox structure with the drumbeat and two chord progression of the verse influenced by the conductor Andre Kostelanetz’ version of the orchestral piece “Grand Canyon Suite.”
“Cathy’s Clown was a favourite of The Beatles, who had, in the early days, toyed with calling themselves The Foreverly Brothers and once referred to themselves as “The English Everly Brothers”.”
“It was one of the songs they messed around with in the Get Back/Let it Be sessions.John (and Paul) admitted that the descending harmony he sings in Please Please Me, while Paul holds the high note was a ploy they learned from Cathy’s Clown.”
“I did the trick of remaining on the high note while the melody cascaded down from it,” said Paul McCartney.
John Lennon even recorded a demo of this song tenderly singing it while playing the piano.