The Kingsmen – Louie Louie

todayFebruary 1, 2019 306 24 2

Oldies '60s

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“Louie Louie” is a single from the album The Kingsmen In Person, from 1963.

The song has bene recorded on April 6, 1963.

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This cost $50 to record. The Kingsmen went to the studio after a radio station executive in Portland saw them perform it live and suggested they record it.
This became a national hit when a disc jockey in Boston played it and declared that it was the worst song he ever heard.
The Kingsmen – Louie Louie. Original US Wand press

This was written by an R&B singer named Richard Berry in 1955. With his group The Pharaohs, he was also the first to record the song; it got some airplay in some cities in the Western US when it was released in 1957. Various garage bands heard it and started covering the song until it became a phenomenon with the Kingsmen’s 1963 version. While much of the song’s notoriety comes from the indecipherable lyrics, in Berry’s original version words are quite clear: The song is about a sailor who spends three days traveling to Jamaica to see his girl.

The FBI launched an extensive investigation into this song after Indiana governor Matthew Welsh declared it “pornographic” in early 1964 and asked the Indiana Broadcasters Association to ban it. The investigation spanned offices in several states, with technicians listening to the song at different speeds trying to discern any obscene lyrics. None were found; the FBI eventually figured out what happened when they contacted the FCC. The report details this correspondence:

“She explained that for approximately two years her company has been receiving unfounded complaints concerning the recording of ‘Louie Louie.’ She advised that to the best of her knowledge, the trouble was started by an unidentified college student, who made up a series of obscene verses for ‘Louie Louie’ and then sold them to fellow students. It is her opinion that a person can take any 45 RPM recording and reduce its speed to 33 RPM and imagine obscene words, depending upon the imagination of the listener.”

On August 24, 2003, 754 guitarists played this at “Louie Fest” in Tacoma, Washington. The event was held to raise money for music programs. Dick Peterson from The Kingsmen was one of the guitarists.


The Kingsmen - Louie Louie
The Kingsmen - Louie Louie
Louie, Louie, melodie a grupului The Kingsmen, a fost înregistrată la 6 Aprilie 1963, și lansată pe single în Iunie, același an. Melodia a fost inclusă pe albumul The Kingsmen In Person. Richard Berry a compus melodia in 1955.

1964, 1 Februarie.
Guvernatorul statului Indiana, Matthew Walsh a interzis versiunea grupului Kingsmen, a melodiei “Louie Louie”, numind-o “pornografică”, devenind un caz federal.

Răspunzând la plângerile că textul melodiei este obscen, FBI a făcut o investigație, din care a rezultat un raport de 118 pagini.

Efectiv FBI a făcut o analiză a cântecului, încercând să descifreze textul, și sunetele din melodie. Au concluzionat că cineva ar fi făcut o versiune “dirty” care ar fi fost distribuită în anumite orașe.

Un exemplu al acestei versiuni “dirty”:

Tonight at 10 I’ll lay her again
We’ll f–k your girl and by the way
And… on that chair I’ll lay her there
I felt my bone… in her hair

Investigația a fost făcută în mai multe state, și peste tot s-a ajuns la aceiași concluzie. Biroul din Detroit a scris: “Înregistrarea a fost făcută la repezeală, și tehnica folosită a fost de calitate slabă, dar melodia sigur, nu este obscenă”

The Kingsmen - Louie Louie

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