The legend of the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” has been told almost as many times as the song itself has been covered.First released in May of 1963, and then re-released that October, the Kingsmen’s version climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart. The song’s popularity among a new generation of rock-and-roll teen-agers brought it to the attention of some concerned citizens. One of them, the father of a teen-age girl, wrote to Robert Kennedy, who was then the Attorney General, to complain about the song’s possible obscenity, prompting an F.B.I. investigation. “This land of ours is headed for an extreme state of moral degradation,” the incensed parent wrote to Kennedy.
Several possible versions of the song’s lyrics, included with the F.B.I.’s report, do make for a rather startling read. In the second verse, for instance, Ely might sing, “At night at ten / I lay her again / #%$@ you girl, oh / All the way.” Or perhaps his words are more onanistic: “Every night and day / I play with my thing / &*#@ your girl / All kinds of ways.”
The F.B.I. investigation dragged on through 1965, with each laboratory examination of the record deemed inconclusive: no one could determine what Ely was singing, so the record couldn’t be declared obscene.
It’s an old sailor song. It was recorded in a garage. They couldn’t afford a mic stand so they hung the mic from the ceiling. The singer said he’d have to stretch and even stand on his toes and that’s why no one could understand the song except the band because they knew the lyrics. I saw the singer explain this in an interview. The record label allowed people to think whatever they wanted to think. The teens thought they were getting away with something when they bought the record. You can look up the actual lyrics.
The ultimate irony of Louie, Louie is that for all the kerfuffle over the lyrics, at fifty-six seconds in, Easton drops his drumstick. “F**k!” he yells. You can hear it if you listen closely.