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From: waltt@tekecs.UUCP (Walt Tucker)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: deciphering rock lyrics...
Message-ID: <5672@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Sep-85 12:32:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekecs.5672
Posted: Fri Sep  6 12:32:58 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Sep-85 00:38:42 EDT
References: <154@helens.UUCP> <587@grkermi.UUCP> <123@mck-csc.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 40

> 
> I caught the middle of them once on the radio a long time ago, and it took
> about three verses before I realized it was "Louie Louie"!  The twisted
> grammar makes it especially incomprehensible.
> 
> Jeffrey Weiss
> McKinsey & Co., Inc.
> Cambridge, MA
> 
> {ihnp4, genrad}!mit-eddie!mck-csc!jw

The Kingsmen were one of the few local Portland, OR bands (early 60's) that 
made it.  They are still around the area, and do local stuff every once and
a while (of course, they are getting up in the years). 

ANYWAY, in a recent Portland Oregonian interview, the ex-leader of the Kingsmen
was asked about "Louie, Louie" and how they arrived at that sound:  

It seems "Louie, Louie" had been recorded by a couple of national groups of 
the time on albums (not released as singles), with fully comphrehensible 
lyrics.  The Kingsmen were just starting out, and decided they wanted to 
make a version of the song to be released as one of their first singles.  
Not having much money, they decided to record their single in one of the 
Portland studios.  Now, Portland is not exactly the music capital of the 
west coast, and in the early sixties a quality sound studio in Portland was 
hard to find.  First, they recorded the instruments.  Then, they went back 
and recorded the words (actually, they could have recorded them both together,
I'm not sure about this part of the story).  However, the position of the 
microphone, quality of the studio, and the fact that all four band members 
had to sing into the same microphone (lack of equipment) led to a record 
that was very garbled.  They did not intentional sing it that way -- that's 
just the way it came out.  The Kingsmen almost threw the record out, as it
turned out quite different than they intended.  But, since they had already 
spent their money to record it, they decided to release it.  People thought 
there were all sorts of hidden meanings in the record.  Controversy surrounded 
it.  Some radio stations refused to play it.  This all resulted in a 
national hit.  The rest, as they say, is history...

                                -- Walt Tucker
                                   Tektronix, Inc.