Songfacts®:

• Written by the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, better known for writing hits for Elvis, this much recorded 1950s uptempo track was described by Desmond Carrington half a century later as a '50s anthem about speed, which sums it up accurately. Certainly it is not an ode to sartorial elegance:
  
  He never washed his face
  And he never combed his hair
  He had axle grease embedded
  Underneath his fingernails
  
  although it just might have been the song that inspired "Leader of the Pack." >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England
• This song tells the story of a guy who loves his motorcycle more than anything in the world, including his girl, Mary Lou. He meets his doom when he goes for a ride and is cleaned out by a diesel truck. When the wreckage clears, all that's left of him is his black denim trousers and motorcycle boots.
• Vaughn Monroe and The Cheers released competing versions of this song in late 1955, with the version by The Cheers proving more popular (#6 in the US; Monroe's peaked at #38). The Cheers recorded it with an orchestra conducted by Les Baxter as "Black Denim Trousers"; Monroe's was titled "Black Denim Trousers And Motorcycle Boots."