Over 40 years after Portland, Oregon's garage rock heroes The Kingsmen turned Richard Berry's jaunty little calypso tune about a Jamaican sailor pining away for his girl in a bar into a celestially perfect mess of rock 'n' roll noise and attitude, the song apparently still has the power to fog the administrative mind and chill the authoritarian soul.
Saturday's Grand Floral Parade through St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, Michigan, could well be without the musical ministrations of McCord Middle School's marching band unless a parental rebellion can overturn a last-minute dictate by schools Superintendent Paula Dawning that the band not play "Louie Louie" at the event.
"It's very stressful for us to try to come up with new songs for the band," the Herald-Palladium reports that eighth-grader Laurice Martin told the school board Tuesday night. "We're trying to learn the songs from last year, but some of us weren't in the band last year. Now we only have two choices, learn a new song or don't participate in the Blossomtime Parade. And we all want to participate."
And it's not like the band would be singing the song anyway.
The Superintendent said she did not make the decision to hurt those in the band. "It was not that I knew at the beginning and said nothing," she said. "I found out Thursday. I normally count on the staff to make reliable decisions. I found out because a parent called, concerned about the song being played. I'm just trying to set some standards..."
Dawning also indicated that parents should sign a petition and submit it to her, and if the majority feel the song should live on through their children, she will reconsider her decision.
What is most hilarious about the whole flapdoodle is that the FBI and the FCC determined after an intensive 30-month investigation in the mid-'60s that the lyrics were not only not obscene, but also were also, resoundingly, "unintelligible at any speed."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - HW Saxton
The funny thing about this is, that many
garage bands in the Mid West(&elsewhere)
used to do "Dirty" versions of "Louie".
So much so that at many CYO dances the
song couldn't be played until after 12
midnight.According to an Iggy biographer
"The Iguanas" were notorious for their
version and it was one of the few songs
that they would let the Ig sing.Though
many times they had the soundman turn
off the volume to his mic because he'd
go off on a Tourettes jag when he did
this song.LOL.The version on The Stooges
"Metallic KO" LP is testament to this.
The chickens coming to roost 40 years
after the fact I guess.Maybe some of the
parents involved remember this stuff.
Also: Louie,Louie is another example of
the far reaching influence of ChuckBerry
on R n R.Richard Berry has professed to
being inspired to write this tune after
repeated listenings to Chuck Berry's
great tune "Havana Moon". Which is about
a sailor getting hammered on Rum while
waiting for his girlfriends boat to come
in.It was also set to a calypso beat.
Sorry 'bout the long winded diatribe.Had
to get in my two cents,that's all.I am
just a veritable cesspool of knowledge.
2 - Jon Sobel
Thank goodness, someone's thinking of the cchhillddrrenn! Once we get "Louie Louie" out of the Michigan schools and sexy cheers out of Texas, everything will be all better.
3 - Eric Olsen
my Lord yes! Thanks Jon, and HW, I should have made more of a point about the "evolution" of the lyrics, which was greatly spurred on by the assumption that they must be dirty
4 - Mark
I have been in a bunch of marching bands way back when I was a kid.
I can't remember ever seeing a piece of sheet music for Louie Louie, but I've also never seen a marching band that couldn't play it - nearly perfectly - with or without a conductor!
I sent the superintendent an e-mail (see my blog by clicking my name below). I encourage you to do the same.
5 - Mark
Oops - make that my name ABOVE.
6 - Eric Olsen
good move Mark, you activist, thanks. And I'll bet none of the marching bands you were in sang the song.
I should have mentioned that I played "Louie Louie" in marching band back in the day myself
7 - Dave Nalle
Well, this may be about the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. What causes people to completely lose touch with common sense like this?
Dave
8 - The Proprietor
The marching band could just say they're doing "Hang On Sloopy" :-)
I've always though the Beach Boys' version of "Louie Louie" as probably the cleanest (in every sense of the term) version of the song. It's really quite wimpy though (I would much rather hear Paul Revere and The Raiders' version, although that one really strays from every other version lyrically).
9 - SFC SKI
Is "Louie Louie" the MOST covered song on in recording history? That would make a hell of a playlist.
10 - HW Saxton
SFC SKI,I think it just may be tied with
Johnny B. Goode for that dubious honor.
The Proprietor,Funny you should say that
about "H.O.S. Rocker Johnny Thunders did
a medley of the two songs (Louie,Hang On
Sloopy)on his "In Cold Blood" LP.
11 - Eric Olsen
it has the inevitability of "Surfin' Bird/Papa Oo Ma Ma"
12 - Eric Berlin
I love that damned song... thanks for providing the lyrics, EO, though it's just as fun to scream along in gibberish, isn't it?
What in the good hell got into these parents to ban a marching band / pop standard like Louie Louie?
You know what's got some real sex going on it? The Bible.
Ban it, I say!
13 - lono
singer Todd Snider sums this whole thing up quite nicely in his Arlo Gurthie-esque 'ballad of the Kingsmen'. What is funny is the controversy over the song he references is about 50 years old. Now, same controversy, same song:
The Kingsmen came together in a garage,
They could hardly even play
But they practiced night
And day pretty soon they got to where they could really play that song Louie,
Louie
So, they saved up all the money from the shows,
Went in to one of them studios and gave their version of the song a try
Now, I don't know the words to that song Louie,
Louie and I'm pretty sure the singer for the
Kingsmen didn't know ‘em either,
If he did know ‘em he didn't get ‘em right on the record
Cause on the record they sound jumbled in his jaw? It says,
Me think of me girl oh so constantly
Ahmayaaah makaaaah aahh ooohoooh aaaaah
Well, that last part scared everybody from the PTA to the FBI
You see, the kids had been going kind of crazy lately
And it seemed like nobody could figure out why,
So they decided to form a coalition,
Launch an investigation, you know for the children, they at least had to try
To figure out the words to Louie, Louie
Chorus
It's the feel good hit of this endless summer
It gets these kids out of control
Singin along to that star spangled bummer,
Hail, hail rock and roll
Marilyn Manson’s real name isn't even Marilyn Manson,
He's a skinny public high school Kid from Florida,
Not some monster from out of this world and like of a lot other skinny long hair public
High school kids he was sick of getting
Beaten up by the pulling guard all week only to go out on the weekend,
And watch the Quarterback get all the girls so,
He formed a band man
Now' he gets all the girls,
A few years later a couple of latchkey kids go tragically
Mad and everybody's standing around the television store at the mall trying to figure out what went wrong,
This guy says,
You think the life of a kid going to high school could've gotten so bad this other guy says nah,
It's just the words to one of them goddamn Marilyn Manson songs,
You know the one
Chorus
You know, every ten years or so our country and some other little country,
We start firing all of our newest weapons
At each other for some reason or another, right or wrong,
Like it or not, it happens, and when it happens
People get shot and when people get shot,
They show it on tv a lot every night at six o clock
And you don't even have to be eighteen to see it you don't even have to be in first grade,
First grade where they teach the kid pride
They tell him he'll need to thrive,
In a world where only the strong will survive,
So he's taught the art of more
To compare to and to keep score Monday thru Friday while
He stares at the floor til' Sunday they make him go to
School once more only this time they make him wear a suit and a tie
And listen to some guy who claims to know Where people go
When they die tell him that only the meek are gonna inherit the earth Well shit,
By this time the kid doesn't know what anything
Is worth, now brothers and sisters I am only one guy
And I don't even know the words to that song Louie,
Louie but I can tell you right now without batting an eye
That the next time some latchkey kid goes wrong
It aint gonna be cause that Eminem gets to say the word Fag in his song
And I'm not trying to preach to ya either,
I'm just trying to sing to ya too, you know string a few words together
Hey kids...
Lets get it on,
Lets get it on
14 - Eric Olsen
didn't know about that one - thanks Lono!
15 - DrPat
Some of us remember the hilarious skit Tommy Smothers used to do about the whistling march from The Bridge on the River Kwai:
"They whistled the words -- the words were dirty!"
16 - Eric Olsen
another essential about the song is that its calypso origins give the rhythm a lot more swing than most garage rock
17 - Vern Halen
But if you listen to Berry's original, the guitar's rhythm strums 1-2-3-4, 1-2. The Kings men dropped a note, so they played 1-2-3, 1-2. They actually sucked some of the swing off it and made it more like an R&B tune. Just one more little modification along the way to making an otherwise trifling song into an accidental classic.
BTW, EVERYBODY needs to hear that Iggy & the Stooges' version mentioned earlier at least once in their life - the ultimate concert confrontation.
18 - JR
Making the dominant chord minor was a nice touch too.
BTW, I like how comment 5 makes comment 4 true.
19 - Eric Olsen
okay, but the point is the emphasis is on the backbeat, which is inherited from the original
20 - Eric Berlin
One of my favorite parts about the song -- the missed cue that is left in somewhere in the middle.
21 - Eric Olsen
I love the loose, trashy, but perfect drums
22 - Eric Berlin
The whole song is loose and trashy, set up by those drums, sung with the perfect slacker-in-cardigan California twang.
23 - DrPat
It's a great band tune, true - perhaps the school Superintendant is more worried about all those 60s leftover parade-goers chiming in with their own versions of lyrics as the band marches past...
24 - Eric Olsen
or perhaps it was just some offhand kneejerk reaction to an incoherent complaint from a deranged parent
25 - Vern Halen
Yes indeed, a backbeat so far back you could forgive everything else about it that quaifies as "lo-fi": the sound, the amatueur yet inspired performance (yes, the missed cue right after the solo is great!), banal lyrics garbled until they become a mystery worth pursuing, and the history of the Kingsmen ever after, who never again made something as primal as this record, which has likely contributed to more than its fair share of sex, drugs and general rock 'n' roll foolishness.
I figure the reason there are so many covers of this song is that some ways, rock 'n' roll is of the moment, and people just want to try & recapture that original inspiration, which I suspect resides deep in that backbeat, just waiting to suck another person into some black hole of a never ending frat party.