The Kingsmen – Louie Louie

Jack Ely, lead singer of The Kingsmen, has passed away at the age of 71.

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3 thoughts on “The Kingsmen – Louie Louie”

Maybe not news to anyone else, butapparently, this song is NSFW.
Page 14 is what a concerned parent thought they were hearing...someone's mind was in the gutter.

I always liked this rendition best:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsXBHIYjTPw

brianS says:

April 29, 2015 at 3:27 pm

apparently the drummer dropped an f-bomb during the recording (done in one take) when he dropped a stick (see the Repository story on the song).

another remembrance

"Right out of his mouth, my father would say, 'We were initially just going to record the song as an instrumental, and at the last minute I decided I'd sing it," Ely's son, Sean Ely, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

When it came time to do that, however, Ely discovered the sound engineer had raised the studio's only microphone several feet above his head. Then he placed Ely in the middle of his fellow musicians, all in an effort to create a better "live feel" for the recording.

The result, Ely would say over the years, was that he had to stand on his toes, lean his head back and shout as loudly as he could just to be heard over the drums and guitars.

It might not have helped, either, that the 20-year-old musician was wearing braces at the time, although Ely maintained that the real problem was trying to sing with his head tilted back at a 45-degree angle.

In any case, the end result was that about the only words anyone could clearly understand were contained in the song's first two lines: "Louie Louie. Oh no. We gotta go."
Pepper says:

April 29, 2015 at 9:07 pm

My dad and I didn't talk much about music, but I remember him telling me about this song when I was a young teenager. (I want to say the subject came up because "Louie Louie" was used in a dance recital I was part of, though my class didn't dance to the song.) He said the song caused concerns when it came out because people couldn't tell what the singer was saying and assumed it must be something bad. While I didn't not believe him, I had no idea the concerns were so far-reaching. Thanks for sharing, CoC!

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