You might think that Louie Louie is a a straightforward early 60s pop record, but part of the reason it’s so well known is the controversy it caused at the time. The story goes that the Kingsmen rehearsed the song all night before the recording session (guess they finally got the hang of those three chords, huh?) so by the time they got to the studio the singer was so far gone he could barely pronounce the words. Since the words were unclear on the recording, some right-wing paranoiacs imagined they heard various words and concepts which they considered beyond the pale, and some plausibly crude approximations purporting to be “the real lyrics” were circulated, resulting in a fruitless 31-month FBI investigation for obscenity. You couldn’t ask for better publicity, of course, which is why The Kingsmen are still apparently making a career out of this song - not bad considering they didn’t even write it. Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention were particularly taken with this amazing ability of people to transfer their own sordid imaginings onto anything the slightest bit ambiguous: the MOI song Plastic People is a sort of deconstruction of Louie Louie, and the opening riff became Zappa’s shorthand motif for general dumbness and stupidity.

Once again I failed to contribute due to indecision - it was either the Stones doing Lennon/McCartney’s I Wanna Be Your Man or the Dylan’s live version of Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues, complete with his comment “There ain’t nothing wrong with this song” referring to him being dropped from a TV show when he was about to perform it.

FiL- I always laugh out loud at your intros but this one was especially hilarious.

Peace
rx

Cheers!

Linda, I was 6 when those lads hit it big in the USA, and I didn’t quite understand the hoopla. If you even said “Beatles” in the presence of my teenaged babysitters, they wailed and melted into a puddle of goo! It didn’t take long to sink in, though.
I’m envious of your Beatles concert. Just plain green.