Louie Louie

The 1960s – the decade where the 1950s white bread era evolved into what some thought was an ill-bred era: the baby boomer's coming of age. Smack-dab in the middle of that transition The Kingsmen, an obscure rock group of limited talent, released a song that may have been destined for the dung-heap of obscurity… except for one thing. It was so lousy, no one could understand the words. Sounding like it was recorded inside a rubber hose, the recording's muffled lyrics led to much speculation as to what the group was really saying. When the collective jury issued a verdict on that debate, however, the word came down that the lyrics were "dirty." The debate and informal conclusion that the words were obscene skyrocketed the song, Louie Louie, into the Billboard top 10.

The debate raged on until even the FBI got involved and ruled it couldn't tell what the hell the group was saying. Matthew Welsh, Indiana Governor, didn't wait for no stinkin' FBI verdict. He bought his own copy of the record, played it at different speeds and declared it inappropriate. "It made my ears tingle," he said, whatever that means.

Welsh contacted a friend, Reid Chapman, who was the President of the Indiana Broadcasters Association, and told him, "It might be simpler all around if Louie Louie wasn't played." Chapman complied and yanked the song from the airwaves. People jumped to the conclusion that Welsh had banned Louie Louie.

The uber-conservative Indianapolis Star pounced right on that and wrote a scathing editorial that demolished both the song for its suspect lyrics and the Governor for overstepping his authority.

Soon after it was… or wasn't… banned in Indiana, Louie Louie dropped from the charts. Welsh, later in life, lamented the fact that although he really didn't ban the song, per se, "It's the only thing I'm remembered for."

Fast forward a few years to my sophomore year in college.

All the furor over the song had died down. Louie Louie remained relatively popular given, or in spite of, what one critic called "an abomination of overbearing jungle rhythm." In other words, it was a good party song. The hippie era was blossoming and the Kingsmen were considered an oldies band.

I lived in Wright Quadrangle, a sprawling dormitory on the Indiana University campus. My roommate, Mike, was its student government President. Mike was a great source of inside information about what was going on in the life of the dorm, which amounted to not much. He intended to change that. He told me for the past several years the quadrangle's Board of Governors hadn't planned any social activities. As a result, their budget for such things sat idle and they had accumulated quite a tidy sum. Mike decided we should have a giant blowout party with the funds. "I want a big-name band," he told me.

Even with a "tidy sum" tucked away, big-name bands weren't cheap and, even though the dorm had an enormous dining room, most of them wanted more than a dorm party. Mike's party fund was just enough to attract – guess who – the Kingsmen. Word spread across campus and the response was incredible. This was going to be… and maybe still is, the biggest party Wright Quad had ever seen.

The appointed night came for the widely-anticipated event. The gargantuan dining hall was packed beyond capacity; no one had bothered to invite the fire marshal. The Kingsmen didn't make the crowd wait for its signature song. The lights went down, the sound came up and the crowd went crazy with that familiar riff… ba-ba-ba ● ba-ba ●  ba-ba-ba ● ba-ba.

I don't remember any of their other songs but steadily throughout the night they reverted to Louie, driving the crowd into a frenzy.

I'm not sure what the truth is about what's on the record, but I can tell you first hand a couple things. First, the words weren't much more clear as I stood listening to them sing it in the same room. Second, as the evening progressed the crowd took over singing along with its own version of the song. That version was, by the standards of that time, obscene... had he been there, it would have made the Governor's ears tingle.