"Castle Rock" was originally written as an instrumental by Al Sears. It was copyrighted March 1951 and originally recorded by Johnny Hodges with sax solo by Al Sears. Subsequently, Sears had Leroy Lovett and Ted Travers write lyrics to this music and copyrighted this version June 19, 1951. There do not seem to be any recorded versions of "Castle Rock" with these lyrics. Around July 1951, Sears entered into an agreement with publisher, George Weiner, who arranged for new lyrics to be written by Erv Drake and Jimmy Shirl. This is the version used in the vocal recordings of "Castle Rock."