Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/12/in-1964-two-teens-complained-about-obscene-louie-louie-lyrics-to-indiana-governor-50-years-later-a-reporter-tracked-them-down-and-asked-why.html
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Back when I was in school, I seem to remember there being talk of Mary Whitehouse trying to get “Uptown, top rankin’” banned for possibly obscene/“unintelligible” lyrics.
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They just needed to wait for Come On Eileen and they’d have been spot on. I’ve always liked that song, but when I encountered it on karaoke, I have to admit the lyrics made me pretty uncomfortable.
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Yikes! 
That is… suspect indeed.
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But what are the the obscene lyrics? Here they are from 'Louie Louie': Indecipherable, Or Indecent? An FBI Investigation : NPR (page 14 of the FBI document):
Lou-Ai Lou-Ai Oh, no. Grab her way down low.
(repeat) This line least clear.
There is a fine little girl waiting for me.
She is just a girl across the way.
When I take her all alone,
She’s never the girl I lay at home…
(Chorus)
Tonight at ten I’ll lay her again
We’ll fuck your girl and by the way
Andf … on that chair I’ll layer her there.
I felt my bone… ah… in her hair.
(Chorus)
She had a rag on, I moved above.
It won’t be long she’ll slip it off.
I held her in my arms and then
And I tolkd her I’d rather lay her again.
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Which is what I like most about it.
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Back in university, when my ears were undoubtedly better I gave “Louie, Louie” a close listen and there were a few differences from the lyrics I found: A couple of interjections, one of the singers comes in early for a few syllables, and at one point when the lyrics have “ship” and “ship” is what makes sense in context it sounds for all the world like they’re singing “she’ll”. No obscenity though.
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I bought an LP record of Louie Louie covers in 1981. Its liner notes described the source of the trouble being that the Kingsmen couldn’t be bothered to actually learn the words of the original song, so they just mumbled when they made their recording. Of course, humans being excellent pattern recognizers, everyone heard what they wanted to hear.
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They are perfectly intelligible and a little raunchy in spots. Mildly.
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The linked lyrics in the BB post goes to the site Lyrics On Demand, and at the bottom it has this note:
Did you know:
Right before the second verse, drummer Lynn Easton
audibly curses as he accidentally misses a cue)
source: The Kingsmen - Louie Louie Lyrics
I dunno, i played the song back a couple of times and i don’t hear anything from the drummer that might sound like cursing.
Edit: I suppose it’s true? I still can’t reaaaally hear it but Snopes has an entry for it
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Oh boy I’ve gone down the rabbit hole so you don’t have to.
Apparently, the “singer” in the video isn’t the singer from the recorded version, Jack Ely, but the drummer, Lynn Easton. By that time, Ely had left the band in a dispute with Easton. Easton got the band and took the frontman role, but he didn’t have the pipes so he always had to lip-sync at live gigs (I wonder if he always had to biff the entrance to the second verse).
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in El Loco, I’m hearing Esquivel at 2:17 , not sure who recorded first or if it’s just some standard latin breakdown, but it’s the same
edit: the b side is pretty good, too, but nothing like Louie Louie
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About 55 seconds in, you hear a background “fuck!” that I’d never paid attention to before someone pointed out what and when it was. (It’s easily read as just a meaningless, enthusiastic shout.) Which is actually pretty funny, especially in the context of the obscenity witch-hunt…
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I wonder what those two people make of WAP by Cardi B
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Sounds like the toolaged eens are as reportable at 70 as they were at 15. Let them start rumors about staying young by random use of stepladders, playing with aircraft maintenance mobile access tools, and purple tomato Neapolitan pizza sauces.
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I enjoy listening to American Top 40 on the 70s channel on SiriusXM.
There are a ton of songs that I can’t believe got air play, many songs are suggestive about sex or not even suggestive.
Last Sunday was the king of dirty songs that I can’t believe got airplay let alone number one.
The live version of My Ding A Ling by Chuck Berry.
I can’t believe Louie Louie even got a second look, the 60s were also filled with suggestive lyrics that no one seemed to care too much about.
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Nothing is as dirty as a lyric your own mind has to fill in
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I think that was because it was dirty, not despite it being dirty
No, wait
The BBC banning Relax was hilarious. The best selling single of 1984 and 52 weeks in the top 40 (35 of which coincided with the ban), five weeks at number 1 and two weeks at number 2 (behind Two Tribes), and it’s still one of the best selling singles of all time in the UK 40 years later. I think the BBC stopped officially banning songs after that.
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