Songfacts®:

• This reggae ghost story is about a coffin on wheels that rides through the streets with three vultures on top that can apparently speak (the vultures in the song are called crows - they're known as "John Crows" in Jamaica. Wherever they go, they ask for Mr. Brown.
  
  This legend was floating around Jamaica in 1970 and became the basis for this song recorded by Bob Marley with his band The Wailers and released the following year. This mystery coffin was supposedly rolling throughout the country, causing all kinds of chaos and leaving everyone with the question, who is Mr. Brown?
  
  Bob Marley explained it this way in an interview with Sounds:
  
  "I never personally see it, but there's a crowd a people runnin' down the street, say dey seen this thing, a coffin... dem say the coffin is on wheels and dey have two crows on the coffin and dem say dey're lookin' for Mr. Brown. Up to now I don' know if it was really actual."
• "Mr. Brown" was produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry and written by Glen Adams, one of the musicians Perry used on the recordings he made (he called these musicians "The Upsetters"). Adams often included the song in his setlists when he performed.
• The song was released as a single and later included on some of Bob Marley's compilation albums, including Songs Of Freedom in 1992.
• Two years later, Bob Marley released a song called "I Shot The Sheriff" where the sheriff's name is John Brown. This lawman appears to have nothing in common with the Mr. Brown in this song.