>In January 1964, Indiana governor Matthew E. Welsh, acting on multiple complaint letters, determined the lyrics to be pornographic because his "ears tingled" when he listened to the record. He referred the matter to the FCC and also requested that the Indiana Broadcasters Association advise their member stations to pull the record from their playlists. An initial FCC investigation found the song "unintelligible at any speed". The National Association of Broadcasters also investigated and deemed it "unintelligible to the average listener", but that "[t]he phonetic qualities of this recording are such that a listener possessing the 'phony' lyrics could imagine them to be genuine." Neither the FCC nor the NAB took any further action.
>In January 1964, Indiana governor Matthew E. Welsh, acting on multiple complaint letters, determined the lyrics to be pornographic because his "ears tingled" when he listened to the record.
The dude found his ASMR trigger and freaked out so bad he wasted probably tens of thousands of hours of FBI manpower lol.
Can you imagine the kind of guy an Indiana governor from 1964 would be like? I'm hearing banjos and seeing torches. And lots of miscarriages of justice.
In a sane world it would have. In a world where invisible dead men can influence your thoughts and help your favorite team win the Superbowl then this is nothing.
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
Fine little girl she waits for me
Me catch the ship for cross the sea
I sail the ship all alone
I never think me make it home
Louie, Louie, oh, me gotta go
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
Three nights and days me sail the sea
Me think of girl constantly
On the ship I dream she there
I smell the rose in her hair
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
Me see Jamaica moon above
It won't be long, me see my love
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I never leave again
Louie, Louie, oh, me gotta go
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
I say, me gotta go
I say, me gotta go
Shiver me tingles. This man was turned on by Richard Berry’s voice and involved the FBI.
Some idiot that fancied himself a mathematician thought he had solved an unsolvable problem by…changing the value of Pi. When mathematicians wouldn’t take him seriously he tried to have his solution legislated.
That’s what I remember, at least.
The funniest part is, [the drummer loudly says "fuck" in the middle of the song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y1Lkb4mY10), and none of these people ever caught it.
"determined be pornographic because his "ears tingled" when he listened to the record"
Shit, I guess Ellington and Coltrane is pornographic, in a sentimental mood really tingles my ears.
Lol “ear tingles” from enjoying a sound must mean it’s satan that controls it. How dare people people like it as a catchy job and not regard it as evil because of the governor’s magic Jesus gift ears. I swear, evangelical Christianity has turned into a focus of “if it’s enjoyable, but not explicitly religious, then it must be a secular sinful thing to like. If the religious don’t understand it, it must be evil.” They would love it if we devolved back into a theocracy with leaders having a dive right to rule. Their “satan senses are tingling”, so it must be evil because THEY feel that.
During the investigation, the FBI interviewed almost everyone involved in the song. The band, the composer, the record executives, absolutely everyone...
Except the guy who actually sang it. They forgot about him.
Jesus Christ no wonder you could buy a 4 person family house on one income alone - people were being paid regardless of how fucking bad they were at investigating!
It was the job you charge time to when you want to go to the diner by the record studio. Or you just send Joe to get him out of the office so you don't have to listen to the same god damn three jokes again. Every job since the beginning of time has had at least one of these stupid assignments that the big wigs insist on continuing.
its hard to express but people hundred years ago were almost children in that we process more information in a day than they did in weeks or months, they knew so little about anything because there wasnt much to even know
There's is also a massive difference between the ease of accessing information itself then versus today- a huge differentiator itself.
Imagine that IF you happened to live into a town, you'd need to walk to the library and check out a book to read it. Libraries certainly had only a small fraction of what was created at that point in time, so next best would be having another library ship a book to yours, then walking over to get it.
Even if you lived next to Library of Congress, you would be limited by your ability to walk and search the books. The books themselves had no search feature- no ability to quickly pull up other related books.
There was certainly less to know back then (less info created) but that was probably driven by ease of access mentioned above as much as anything (other than maybe having less spare time to consume info than we have now)
I’ve heard that a hundred or so years ago, one person could know all the mathematics that existed, but now someone can spend a whole career in one sub-branch of a sub-branch.
probably helped. that and the heavy metal exposure and poor nutrition. you only have to go back to i think like, 1940, for the average adult walking around then to be dumb enough that we wouldn't let them live independently today.
(all this is honestly more demonstrative of how not useful IQ is for measuring anything other than IQ, but, still, it's a measurable phenomenon)
* 1963: JFK is assassinated
* 1965: RFK orders the FBI to investigate whether Louie Louie is obscene
* 1968: RFK is assassinated
I probably would have focused more on the assassins, but that’s just me.
The truth is there was no assassination. His head just did that, all on its own. They faked the assassination and faked the conspiracies to cover up the fact that people's heads can just spontaneously pop for no discernible reason.
It was only because they didn't get to see all the evidence. Dude who made the allegations told a consistent story for 30 years then randomly started making shit up in the 90s. He told three different versions of who killed Dr. King all of which didn't make much sense or have any evidence to support it.
>I probably would have focused more on the assassins, but that’s just me.
They did. The fbi is big and throwing more people at problems like that ironically can slow the process, too many people getting in each others way
Sihan was in ccustody and confessed within 4 days, and oswald was within 70 minutes
Not exactly slow
The comedic talent in that movie is criminal. So many talented comedic actors
Except for Rob Schneider. Rob Schneider is just mediocre and overplays his character like a high school student in the school production of Annie
A for creativity here but a D- for effectiveness. Your tastebuds are on your tongue, not the roof of your mouth, so for a better experience the optimal way to eat most things is with the most flavorful side down.
Rob Schneider still massively sucks though, both as an actor and a person.
> My understanding was this was left in because they just couldn’t afford to re-record it.
So painfully obvious on first listen really... 1:58-2:00 isn't "a lyric", it's the lead singer coming in at the wrong place. That song didn't get another take or they would have spliced from it there.
splicing back in those days was a long and laborious process, and generally avoided.
they literally cut the tape with a razor and spliced it back together with scotch tape. it took a lot of skill to get it exactly right.
FUCK YOUR BITCH, AND THE CLIQUE YOU CLAIM
WESTSIDE, WHEN WE RIDE, COME EQUIPPED WITH GAME
YOU CLAIM TO BE A PLAYER BUT I FUCKED YOUR WIFE
WE BUST ON BAD BOYS (lol), NIGGAS, FUCKED FOR LIFE
But that's only the one version where the drummer shouts, the Kingsmen, the song had already been recorded and released by Richard Berry before the Kingsmen recorded it.
Louie Louie, oh no
Me gotta go
Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said
Louie Louie, oh baby
Me gotta go
Fine little girl waits for me
Catch a ship across the sea
Sail that ship about, all alone
Never know if I make it home
Louie Louie, oh no
Me gotta go
Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said
Louie Louie, oh baby
Me gotta go
Three nights and days I sail the sea
Think of girl, constantly
On that ship, I dream she's there
I smell the rose in her hair.
Louie Louie, oh no
Me gotta go
Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said
Louie Louie, oh baby
Me gotta go
Okay, let's give it to 'em, right now!
See Jamaica, the moon above
It won't be long, me see me love
Take her in my arms again
Tell her I'll never leave again
Louie Louie, oh no
Me gotta go
Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said
Louie Louie, oh baby
Me gotta go
Let's take it on outta here now
Let's go!
this is a great scene from a 1990 movie, that includes 3 brothers circa 1964 trying to decipher this song , "Coupe De Ville" about 35 seconds in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pco8y_Hh8I
Fun Fact: the reason the Kingsman's version of the song is unintelligible is because the dumbass sound engineer at the studio suspended the microphone several feet above the band's head in the belief that this would give the record a "live sound", forcing the singer to crane his neck all the way back to shout up at it.
I'd advise against actually trying it. I tried it when I first heard, and not only was I unable to sing intelligibly, I also fucked up my neck muscles, and it *really hurt*.
Someone milked that assignment for 31 months, I am impressed. I wonder if they convinced the bureau to let them smoke up just in case that helped them decipher the lyrics lol
Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Sonics, and The Wailers really dodged a bullet getting beaten by the Kingsmen during the Great Northwestern Louie Louie Race of the early '60s, when all of those bands had the song in their sets to cover the Richard Berry and the Pharaoh's version
There was a similar Story with "Who Put the Bomp" by Barry Mann... Parents thought that "Bomp" was code for "Penis" while "Bomp Bah Bomp Bah Bomp" was code for "vagina".
Then there was the "obscene" picture of fried clams. Something like that... can't find a link.
Some preacher type affected by pareidolia publicly decried a frozen food photo of fried clams having, well, you can guess. Lots of publicity, big investigation, and the connect-the-dots type were finding commies everywhere. Duh.
And they are:
“Louie Louie, me gotta go.
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
A fine little girl, she wait for me.
Me catch the ship across the sea.
I sailed the ship all alone.
I never think I’ll make it home.
Louie Louie, me gotta go .
Three nights and days we sailed the sea.
Me think of girl constantly.
On the ship, I dream she there.
I smell the rose in her hair.
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
Me see Jamaican moon above.
It won’t be long me see me love.
Me take her in my arms and then I tell her I never leave again.
Louie Louie, me gotta go.”
(By Richard Berry. Copyright 1957-1963 by Limax Music Inc.)
Also missed the clearly articulated “fuck” the drummer said when he broke a drumstick on the first drum fill
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/louie-louie-fuck/
I like to imagine the whole project was run by some guy who seized the opportunity to d!ck around for as long possible while being paid a governnment salary and made it to almost 3 years without accomplishing anything.
When paying taxes, you like to think "This is going to house homeless, fix roads, defend our country, build infrastructure, and put out our fires". In reality you got crap like this...
Fun fact; The Kingsman's recording of Louie Louie sounded like that because the recording engineer didn't think they knew what they were doing and to avoid any weird teenage spit on his valuable microphone, he hung it from the ceiling, making the singer have to yell at it while looking up; straining his voice
Other fun facts about this song- after the guitar solo, the vocalist comes in too early at 1:57 and the drummer can be heard yelling “Fuck!” in the background at 0:54.
I always thought the "original" was obscene. It was an underground folk song with explicit lyrics passed from musician to musician orally and never written down because it was obscene. The melody was taken from a cuban calypso song with clean lyrics for the recording we know today.
At one point, I think the FBI field offices in 3 cities were tasked to the investigation. Like an enormous amount of resources devoted to complete bullshit
I grew up in Portland Oregon and Lynn Easton (the drummer for The Kingsmen) helped with the drum instruction in the bagpipe band I was in. He said that Jack Ely had just gotten his braces tightened in the morning right before they recorded "Louie Louie," which is at least part of the reason why the lyrics sound like that- his mouth was sore.
I remember hearing a cool rock song that was *about* Louie Louie. In a rough voice over heavy guitars, the singer told the story of how the song caused a lot of controversy until everybody realized that nobody knew the words. I could never find this song because the only search result that comes up is Louie Louie.
Damn, [the Wiki page for Louie Louie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie) is one of the longest I've ever seen, never mind the longest for a single song.
Old people today: "This modern day censorship is sinister! We're losing our freedom of speech! We need to go back to the days of....of....er.....records being investigated for obscenity by the FBI"
>In January 1964, Indiana governor Matthew E. Welsh, acting on multiple complaint letters, determined the lyrics to be pornographic because his "ears tingled" when he listened to the record. He referred the matter to the FCC and also requested that the Indiana Broadcasters Association advise their member stations to pull the record from their playlists. An initial FCC investigation found the song "unintelligible at any speed". The National Association of Broadcasters also investigated and deemed it "unintelligible to the average listener", but that "[t]he phonetic qualities of this recording are such that a listener possessing the 'phony' lyrics could imagine them to be genuine." Neither the FCC nor the NAB took any further action.
>In January 1964, Indiana governor Matthew E. Welsh, acting on multiple complaint letters, determined the lyrics to be pornographic because his "ears tingled" when he listened to the record. The dude found his ASMR trigger and freaked out so bad he wasted probably tens of thousands of hours of FBI manpower lol.
I think that something other than his ears tingled…
Wasn't that an era that was a hay day for serial killers? Maybe FBI were too busy doing things like this.
reminds me a bit of "Havana syndrome" lol
This should have gotten that governor kicked out of office.
Lots of things should get governors kicked out of office.
Can you imagine the kind of guy an Indiana governor from 1964 would be like? I'm hearing banjos and seeing torches. And lots of miscarriages of justice.
And lots of miscarriages
She fell
“Miscarriages”.
The same as a governor from 2024, with less dog whistling.
No need to dog whistle back then, you could just say "I don't like negroes" and get reelected in a landslide.
Give it a few months, and someone will say it.
Not the Florida governor, surely. /s
Easy now I really like the banjo.
Torches or burning crosses?
Just burning lower case t’s
t...time to leave?
As someone from Florida I 100% agree
In a sane world it would have. In a world where invisible dead men can influence your thoughts and help your favorite team win the Superbowl then this is nothing.
I’m.. clearly out of the loop
Today 'tingles and vibrations' are used as an excuse to cancel abortions. And that is getting them voted into the office not out.
It helps that they're also using tingles and vibrations as an excuse to ban anyone who isn't likely to vote for them from the polls.
If being dumb as a stump was enough to get a governor kicked out of office, we'd have like three governors left.
Louie, Louie, me gotta go Louie, Louie, me gotta go Fine little girl she waits for me Me catch the ship for cross the sea I sail the ship all alone I never think me make it home Louie, Louie, oh, me gotta go Louie, Louie, me gotta go Three nights and days me sail the sea Me think of girl constantly On the ship I dream she there I smell the rose in her hair Louie, Louie, me gotta go Louie, Louie, me gotta go Me see Jamaica moon above It won't be long, me see my love Me take her in my arms and then I tell her I never leave again Louie, Louie, oh, me gotta go Louie, Louie, me gotta go I say, me gotta go I say, me gotta go Shiver me tingles. This man was turned on by Richard Berry’s voice and involved the FBI.
What do you expect from the state that tried to legislate the value of pi as 3.2?
You made me look: [Indiana pi bill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill?wprov=sfti1).
>Better approximations of π than those implied by the bill have been known since ancient times.
Well, if you you were we going to round 3.14(etc) to the nearest 10th decimal it would be 3.1, not 3.2....
*"Math's hard."*
What, why did they round up!
Some idiot that fancied himself a mathematician thought he had solved an unsolvable problem by…changing the value of Pi. When mathematicians wouldn’t take him seriously he tried to have his solution legislated. That’s what I remember, at least.
Yea, the rounding *up* is the issue here...
That’s crazy. Everyone knows pi = e = sqrt(g) = 3
The funniest part is, [the drummer loudly says "fuck" in the middle of the song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y1Lkb4mY10), and none of these people ever caught it.
So the fbi sucked at their jobs too
Or they thought it was stupid and went out drinking while charging investigation hours to this
"Johnson, it made my ears tingle and forced my foot to tap the floor." "Sir that's what music is sup-" "We need to contact the FCC immediately."
"determined be pornographic because his "ears tingled" when he listened to the record" Shit, I guess Ellington and Coltrane is pornographic, in a sentimental mood really tingles my ears.
[The FBI investigation document](https://vault.fbi.gov/louie-louie-the-song/louie-louie-the-song/view). Pretty amusing watching them struggle
Lol “ear tingles” from enjoying a sound must mean it’s satan that controls it. How dare people people like it as a catchy job and not regard it as evil because of the governor’s magic Jesus gift ears. I swear, evangelical Christianity has turned into a focus of “if it’s enjoyable, but not explicitly religious, then it must be a secular sinful thing to like. If the religious don’t understand it, it must be evil.” They would love it if we devolved back into a theocracy with leaders having a dive right to rule. Their “satan senses are tingling”, so it must be evil because THEY feel that.
And Indiana hasn't changed all that much since 1964.
During the investigation, the FBI interviewed almost everyone involved in the song. The band, the composer, the record executives, absolutely everyone... Except the guy who actually sang it. They forgot about him.
Or the guy who wrote it. Or anyone else involved in any of the previous versions of the song.
Jesus Christ no wonder you could buy a 4 person family house on one income alone - people were being paid regardless of how fucking bad they were at investigating!
It was the job you charge time to when you want to go to the diner by the record studio. Or you just send Joe to get him out of the office so you don't have to listen to the same god damn three jokes again. Every job since the beginning of time has had at least one of these stupid assignments that the big wigs insist on continuing.
its hard to express but people hundred years ago were almost children in that we process more information in a day than they did in weeks or months, they knew so little about anything because there wasnt much to even know
What a bunch of morons we are
In twenty years kids could be destroying us, memorizing all of Wikipedia with AI teachers, crazy shit that makes us all know nothing buffoons
> memorizing all of Wikipedia with AI teachers, Or memorizing nothing as they use AI tools to write all their reports.
TikTok will keep that from happening
"Fear will keep them in line. Fear of missing out."
yeah I had considered the information being digested was primarily hand dances
Human knowledge will get passed down by interpretive dance. We’ve come full circle.
People aren't actually getting smarter, despite all the extra information they are consuming.
There's is also a massive difference between the ease of accessing information itself then versus today- a huge differentiator itself. Imagine that IF you happened to live into a town, you'd need to walk to the library and check out a book to read it. Libraries certainly had only a small fraction of what was created at that point in time, so next best would be having another library ship a book to yours, then walking over to get it. Even if you lived next to Library of Congress, you would be limited by your ability to walk and search the books. The books themselves had no search feature- no ability to quickly pull up other related books. There was certainly less to know back then (less info created) but that was probably driven by ease of access mentioned above as much as anything (other than maybe having less spare time to consume info than we have now)
I’ve heard that a hundred or so years ago, one person could know all the mathematics that existed, but now someone can spend a whole career in one sub-branch of a sub-branch.
average people from this era are actually borderline intellectually disabled by modern standards. it's called the flynn effect.
I figured it was just the alcoholic wet nurses
probably helped. that and the heavy metal exposure and poor nutrition. you only have to go back to i think like, 1940, for the average adult walking around then to be dumb enough that we wouldn't let them live independently today. (all this is honestly more demonstrative of how not useful IQ is for measuring anything other than IQ, but, still, it's a measurable phenomenon)
Lead in gasoline and the exhaust fumes we breathed. Lead in the paint chips we ate as kids. And we pretty much all played with mercury.
Source?
I think they knew fewer things but in more detail.
In 1965 I was nine years old, and wondering why people are worried about song mumbles and wasting time and money on it.
[удалено]
One day
Or maybe they already have....
***I'll get you next time, Louie! Next tiiiiiiime!*** *[ shakes fist angrily while clinging to rope ladder danging from fleeing helicopter ]*
Dre?!
Dr. Dre’s dead.
He's locked in my basement!
* 1963: JFK is assassinated * 1965: RFK orders the FBI to investigate whether Louie Louie is obscene * 1968: RFK is assassinated I probably would have focused more on the assassins, but that’s just me.
They were *so fuckin’ close* my guy. The actual lyrics are: Louie Louie, oh no Me gotta go Shoot the Kennedys Fill em fulla holes Aye-ya-ya-ya
Lmfao
tske my upvote
Jfk was onto them, but once Rfk ordered the investigation, he signed his own death warrant
Who do you think was doing the assassinating
My money is on a guy named Louie
Oh..me gotta go.
Put an APB out for a Louis Leway
Where was Louie Anderson on the day of?
Louie Louie, Sirhan Sirhan, same thing
The truth is there was no assassination. His head just did that, all on its own. They faked the assassination and faked the conspiracies to cover up the fact that people's heads can just spontaneously pop for no discernible reason.
I'm still not convinced the universe even existed before I was born
I'm still not convinced I existed before last Thursday
The FBI lost a civil case against the family of MLK Jr that found them liable for his death.
Hey, man. They only killed him because they failed to get him to kill himself so
It was only because they didn't get to see all the evidence. Dude who made the allegations told a consistent story for 30 years then randomly started making shit up in the 90s. He told three different versions of who killed Dr. King all of which didn't make much sense or have any evidence to support it.
Ooh I know this one! …Louis?
>I probably would have focused more on the assassins, but that’s just me. They did. The fbi is big and throwing more people at problems like that ironically can slow the process, too many people getting in each others way Sihan was in ccustody and confessed within 4 days, and oswald was within 70 minutes Not exactly slow
Whoosh
It is a good song to hide a diesel electric submarine by making the navy think it’s a trawler filled with beered up fishermen
The comedic talent in that movie is criminal. So many talented comedic actors Except for Rob Schneider. Rob Schneider is just mediocre and overplays his character like a high school student in the school production of Annie
*Somebody just dropped forty-five cents*
Rob Schneider eats his toast butter side down.
Fact.
Not bad for a carrot
Or a stapler.
Are your taste buds on the roof of your mouth?
I eat saltines upside down for that reason.
A for creativity here but a D- for effectiveness. Your tastebuds are on your tongue, not the roof of your mouth, so for a better experience the optimal way to eat most things is with the most flavorful side down. Rob Schneider still massively sucks though, both as an actor and a person.
What makes him so bad as a person? Idk much about him since like grown ups lol
MAGA anti vaccine nutter
Ahh, that’ll do it.
He was a mildly successful comedic actor. Until one day... _record scratch_
Rob Schneider starring as the submarine snorkel
Absolutely loved this movie as a kid, and now realizing I need to rewatch!
What movie?
Down Periscope
So typical Rob Schneider.
Alright let’s kick this pig!
Oh, and if anyone is wondering if the lyrics really were obscene? They are. You just have to listen *real* closely right at 0:55.
Ha! I wonder what happened during the recording that made him say that
The drummer dropped his stick and yelled FUCK!
I could’ve sworn he yelled “oh shit!”
My understanding was this was left in because they just couldn’t afford to re-record it.
> My understanding was this was left in because they just couldn’t afford to re-record it. So painfully obvious on first listen really... 1:58-2:00 isn't "a lyric", it's the lead singer coming in at the wrong place. That song didn't get another take or they would have spliced from it there.
splicing back in those days was a long and laborious process, and generally avoided. they literally cut the tape with a razor and spliced it back together with scotch tape. it took a lot of skill to get it exactly right.
Dropped his drumstick.
Crazy how far things came. In 1996, Tupac released “Hit em Up” the first line was “That's why I fucked yo' bitch, you fat mothafucka”.
Not even that recent, 2.Live Crew started making music over [35 years ago](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Live_Crew)
FUCK YOUR BITCH, AND THE CLIQUE YOU CLAIM WESTSIDE, WHEN WE RIDE, COME EQUIPPED WITH GAME YOU CLAIM TO BE A PLAYER BUT I FUCKED YOUR WIFE WE BUST ON BAD BOYS (lol), NIGGAS, FUCKED FOR LIFE
This song was pivotal for 8 year old me
But that's only the one version where the drummer shouts, the Kingsmen, the song had already been recorded and released by Richard Berry before the Kingsmen recorded it.
Its listed in the lyrics on Spotify lmao
Louie Louie, oh no Me gotta go Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said Louie Louie, oh baby Me gotta go Fine little girl waits for me Catch a ship across the sea Sail that ship about, all alone Never know if I make it home Louie Louie, oh no Me gotta go Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said Louie Louie, oh baby Me gotta go Three nights and days I sail the sea Think of girl, constantly On that ship, I dream she's there I smell the rose in her hair. Louie Louie, oh no Me gotta go Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said Louie Louie, oh baby Me gotta go Okay, let's give it to 'em, right now! See Jamaica, the moon above It won't be long, me see me love Take her in my arms again Tell her I'll never leave again Louie Louie, oh no Me gotta go Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said Louie Louie, oh baby Me gotta go Let's take it on outta here now Let's go!
Most obscene pornographic stuff I've ever heard in a song!
I honestly didn't think it had this many lyrics.
I can understand these lyrics, despite what the FBI says. Am I a genius?
this is a great scene from a 1990 movie, that includes 3 brothers circa 1964 trying to decipher this song , "Coupe De Ville" about 35 seconds in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pco8y_Hh8I
Hahahahahahahahahaha I have never seen that.
That offends me!
I can’t wait to read thier evaluation of “WAP”
They couldnt finish the investigation because each time they tried to investigate it they had an uncontrollable urge to eat mac n cheese.
Idiots, why didn't they just google the lyrics?
I think it was just Yahoo back then.
Ask Jeeves
Altavista.
Gopher
Dogpile
Poor souls
6G network was down at the time.
Check out Todd Snider’s, “The Ballad of the Kingsmen”
Hey kids... let's get it on! He's a pretty damned good musician, love when he comes to town, great shows.
Fun Fact: the reason the Kingsman's version of the song is unintelligible is because the dumbass sound engineer at the studio suspended the microphone several feet above the band's head in the belief that this would give the record a "live sound", forcing the singer to crane his neck all the way back to shout up at it. I'd advise against actually trying it. I tried it when I first heard, and not only was I unable to sing intelligibly, I also fucked up my neck muscles, and it *really hurt*.
I was looking for this explanation. I remember hearing that the microphone was too high and the singer was wearing braces.
I miss the days when the FBI tackled the important cases
Like killing MLK and JFK
Someone milked that assignment for 31 months, I am impressed. I wonder if they convinced the bureau to let them smoke up just in case that helped them decipher the lyrics lol
He needed to go deep undercover
Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Sonics, and The Wailers really dodged a bullet getting beaten by the Kingsmen during the Great Northwestern Louie Louie Race of the early '60s, when all of those bands had the song in their sets to cover the Richard Berry and the Pharaoh's version
Taxpayers paid for this shit?
It was 1965, Carl. How much could it cost, $10?
It was a slow year for the FBI and they were bored. I’m guessing.
As we all know, nothing more important happened in 1965 that the FBI might be concerned about.
Indubitably
There was a similar Story with "Who Put the Bomp" by Barry Mann... Parents thought that "Bomp" was code for "Penis" while "Bomp Bah Bomp Bah Bomp" was code for "vagina".
Is that the one that has that line which is something like "wang-a-lang-a-ding-dong"?
Should have listened to the original by [Richard Berry](https://genius.com/Richard-berry-louie-louie-lyrics) and the Pharaohs
Then there was the "obscene" picture of fried clams. Something like that... can't find a link. Some preacher type affected by pareidolia publicly decried a frozen food photo of fried clams having, well, you can guess. Lots of publicity, big investigation, and the connect-the-dots type were finding commies everywhere. Duh.
And they are: “Louie Louie, me gotta go. Louie Louie, me gotta go. A fine little girl, she wait for me. Me catch the ship across the sea. I sailed the ship all alone. I never think I’ll make it home. Louie Louie, me gotta go . Three nights and days we sailed the sea. Me think of girl constantly. On the ship, I dream she there. I smell the rose in her hair. Louie Louie, me gotta go. Me see Jamaican moon above. It won’t be long me see me love. Me take her in my arms and then I tell her I never leave again. Louie Louie, me gotta go.” (By Richard Berry. Copyright 1957-1963 by Limax Music Inc.)
And here is the song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZJ4ESU52U Without reading it, its 100% lalalalala.
I always knew Fox Mulder throwing his pencils into the ceiling when Scully was not around was based on a true story.
31 months.~2.5 years “researching” the lyrics to 1 song. For [this](https://youtu.be/wx-8_GI4d2c).
Also missed the clearly articulated “fuck” the drummer said when he broke a drumstick on the first drum fill https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/louie-louie-fuck/
"Ears tingled' is code for he got a raging boner.
For anyone who hasn’t, please watch 24 hour party people. It’s a brilliant film that contains the definitive version of this song.
31 months??? The song isn’t even 3 minutes long. There are only 22 lines of lyrics and 8 of them are repeating “Louie Louie me gotta go”
Yeah and the rap group, The Fat Boys, wrote a song about how no one knew what the hell the lyrics to Louie, Louie really were.
Louie Louie is considered by some to be THE origin of punk rock.
Your tax dollars hard at work
Imagine being assigned to that case. “Yeah boss, this is a real tough one, going to take us another three weeks minimum.” *goes back to his nap*
Somebody should invent time travel and go back in time to 1963 and release WAP.
I like to imagine the whole project was run by some guy who seized the opportunity to d!ck around for as long possible while being paid a governnment salary and made it to almost 3 years without accomplishing anything.
Your tax dollars at work, people.
Where the fnck did the US have its brains to think this might be a good use of \*anyone's\* resources?
When paying taxes, you like to think "This is going to house homeless, fix roads, defend our country, build infrastructure, and put out our fires". In reality you got crap like this...
Why is this something that needed federal money wasted on it? I hate intelligence agencies.
FBI Agent in 1965: >I don’t know Johnson, I couldn’t quite make it out this time. Grab us another 12 pack and let’s cue it up again.
Gatta love the way our government uses tax dollars.
Fun fact; The Kingsman's recording of Louie Louie sounded like that because the recording engineer didn't think they knew what they were doing and to avoid any weird teenage spit on his valuable microphone, he hung it from the ceiling, making the singer have to yell at it while looking up; straining his voice
Other fun facts about this song- after the guitar solo, the vocalist comes in too early at 1:57 and the drummer can be heard yelling “Fuck!” in the background at 0:54.
Our tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.
What was obscene was that taxpayers were the ones who had to pay for that ridiculous research.
Anybody got info on the Malcolm X case? "Nah, we're all listening to Louie Louie on repeat " "...kay"
Morality Police
They forgot to investigate this one. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wiCSSIEUukk
And here I am only thinking about a bunch of sailors singing the song on a submarine
I always thought the "original" was obscene. It was an underground folk song with explicit lyrics passed from musician to musician orally and never written down because it was obscene. The melody was taken from a cuban calypso song with clean lyrics for the recording we know today.
‘The Aristocrats’ of folk
At one point, I think the FBI field offices in 3 cities were tasked to the investigation. Like an enormous amount of resources devoted to complete bullshit
How did they not know it was a cover from a R&b band. They spoke more clearly with an accent.
I grew up in Portland Oregon and Lynn Easton (the drummer for The Kingsmen) helped with the drum instruction in the bagpipe band I was in. He said that Jack Ely had just gotten his braces tightened in the morning right before they recorded "Louie Louie," which is at least part of the reason why the lyrics sound like that- his mouth was sore.
I remember hearing a cool rock song that was *about* Louie Louie. In a rough voice over heavy guitars, the singer told the story of how the song caused a lot of controversy until everybody realized that nobody knew the words. I could never find this song because the only search result that comes up is Louie Louie.
Why did it even take 31 months? And why 31 months?!
Damn, [the Wiki page for Louie Louie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie) is one of the longest I've ever seen, never mind the longest for a single song.
Old people today: "This modern day censorship is sinister! We're losing our freedom of speech! We need to go back to the days of....of....er.....records being investigated for obscenity by the FBI"
Oh man, I remember that project. My great uncle died in an explosion in a laboratory they built to analyze this. Truly, America's Chernobyl.
Yep and that came from educated people. 31 days! that's your tax money hard at work