Etco!

Back in the '60s, the FBI spent two years trying to discern whether the lyrics to "Louie, Louie" were obscene; it concluded that they were "unintelligible at any speed." Now school officials in Benton Harbor, Michigan, have decided the song is indecent even if there's no words at all: The smut-wary superintendent has banned the McCord Middle School band from playing it at a parade this weekend.

[Thanks to Hit & Run regular Fyodor for the tip.]

Comments

wsdave | May 5, 2005, 4:17pm | #

The band should defiantly choose "Tequila" instead.

louie | May 5, 2005, 4:25pm | #

Quote from the clueless principal:

"It was not that I knew at the beginning and said nothing," Dawning said. "I normally count on the staff to make reliable decisions. I found out because a parent called, concerned about the song being played."

The squeaky wheel strikes again.

dhex | May 5, 2005, 4:32pm | #

is there anything quite like school district politics?

David | May 5, 2005, 4:39pm | #

The band should play "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails. That would fix 'em!

independent worm | May 5, 2005, 4:40pm | #

Ahhh, reminds me of high school. Allow me to bore you for 2 minutes, if you will, with this True Story of ignorant school authority:

In a small group yearbook photo (about 8 of us for some club or other) I made the heavy-metal-ish sign-language sign for "I live you." Thumb index and pinky up, middle and ring fingers down. What can I say. East Baltimore. 1980's.

So.... a few days later, the teacher in charge of the yearbook sees the photo and absolutely... "flips out" doesn't even begin to describe it. She nearly had a nervous breakdown. I had to go to the principal, and the vice-principal. They threatened to expel me from school (public school no less). It was the spring before graduation; I was 7th in my class of 350 or so, with a college scholarship wrapped up.

So what the fuck?

In my defense, I brought in a sign language book from the public library. Very clearly marked was the meaning of this gesture. I showed the principal and the vice-principal. How the fuck can they even begin to suggest that I be expelled because some half-witted 40ish spinster douchebag thinks she's just seen the devil or something? How in fucking hell can the responsibility attach to me?

Despite all evidence and logic to the contrary, they declared that in order for me to not be expelled, i had to (a) apologize; and (b) pay the costs of re-shooting the photo (approx. 10 dollars).

So I go to "apologize," sign-language book in hand. I walk in the door, and she's trembling already. I was in no way a big scary guy; just your basic skinny high school dork. No spiked leather jackets or any of that. I probably had on cords and an oxford or something. I go to open the book to show her the sign, and she puts her hands in front of her face and says "No!!! I don't wanna see it!! Nooo!!!!" She absolutely refused to even consider the possibility that she might have been mistaken, and the whole thing blown out of proportion, and that it was all her stupid fault and not mine.

That day I learned just how fucking far an incompetent bureaucratic fuckhead will go to avoid admitting the truth of their own mistake, regardless of its consequences to innocent people. Formative experience? Fuck yeah. Learned more from that than just about anything else, ever.

Stretch | May 5, 2005, 4:45pm | #

Wow. Banning an instrumental version of a 40 year old song. That's just great.

"Band members and parents complained to the Board of Education at its Tuesday meeting that it was too late to learn another song..."

"Dawning said that if a majority of parents supports their children playing the song, she will reconsider her decision."

So, let me get this straight. Because one parent complained, she canceled the song, but she will only uncancel it if a majority of parents come forward with support.

There's a really strange minority/majority interplay going on in America these days, where people seem to blindly accept the credo "majority rules" and yet will do anything to cater to an "offended" minority.

To be "fair" to Dawning, public schools can not abide anything which might upset a parent (unless it's drugging or handcuffing their children without consent) whether that's failing illiterate little Johnny or playing "Louie, Louie".

David | May 5, 2005, 4:49pm | #

Independent worm,

You can't blame the teacher. After all, the devil is everywhere. Maybe if they would let the kids pray in schools, you wouldn't have fallen prey to Satan.

dhex | May 5, 2005, 4:56pm | #

worm ,you're lucky. post columbine would have seen you on a dozen meds!

kmw | May 5, 2005, 4:56pm | #

I find it telling that good ol' J. Edgar liked to go out and look for moral infractions, considering his private life.

And I would think that freedom of religion allows one to worship the devil if one so chooses. "Satanist" is even a recognized religion by the military. Has discrimination against devil worshippers ever been challenged on 1st amendments grounds?

fyodor | May 5, 2005, 5:29pm | #

As I told Jesse, last time I heard the song on the radio I made it a point to try to make out the words (besides the chorus) and maybe got about five of 'em. I think "baby" and "fine" and "girl" were in there. Anyone else heard that the Kingsmen learned the song from a record and couldn't understood all the words themselves, thus they intentionally slurred their way through much of the song?

Number 6 | May 5, 2005, 5:31pm | #

I cover school board stuff, and always come away sputtering with revulsion. It's not that they say any one thing that's stupid-it's a gestalt phenomenon of obfuscation and fuzzy-headed "thinking." There is something about schools, escpecially public ones, that encourages levels of stupidity and incompetence unheard of anywhere else.

Worm-wow. I thought I had some entertaining clashes with petty authority. That truly takes the cake.

Number 6 | May 5, 2005, 5:34pm | #

BTW-I have seen the lyrics printed out, and they are utterly innocuous.

Jennifer | May 5, 2005, 5:40pm | #

So this woman doesn't just have a stick up her ass, but a stick up her ass which is forty-two years old. I am an atheist, but I will give a fervent prayer of thanksgiving tonight that I'm not a teacher anymore.

By the way,these are the lyrics, as cut and pasted from The Straight Dope:

"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.)

Number 6 | May 5, 2005, 5:42pm | #

Jennifer-what drove you out?

smacky | May 5, 2005, 5:47pm | #

Ha! That's a good one, worm. When I was in high school, the school secretary earnestly tried to get me to go home and change because I was wearing a black Skinny Puppy t-shirt. [Mind you, I did sometimes wear black t-shirts with "questionable" and or "offensive" phrasing on them, but this one only had the band name on it, and some art.] So I laughed and asked her why I should go home and change my shirt. She said,"that's an ugly baby".

Just one of many retarded stories I could tell you about the administration at my militantly right-wing public high school of yore.

Lowdog | May 5, 2005, 5:51pm | #

Alright smacky! A Skinny Puppy fan! I knew I liked you. :)

You know what's funny, though? A lot of that shit that I loved back in the day is unlistenable to me now.

independent worm | May 5, 2005, 5:51pm | #

Ahhh, memory lane. This latest trip thereto inspired me to look at the school's website (they didn't have those when I went there), to see if the offending teacher was still there (she's not).

However, I did not go away empty handed. I was treated to this, regarding Athletics: "The rule is no more than one (1) failing grade during a marking period or you will be declared acidemicaly ineligible." Even if your permit has properly been signed by your parent "or gaurdian".

Overlea High School -- Your tax dollars at work. Edjumacatin' 1200 students at a time.

StoneyBaloney | May 5, 2005, 5:51pm | #

Paul Graham explores why schools suck in this essay:
http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Given the pointless prison-like nature of schools - no wonder we get corrections officer like mentality.

The Wine Commonsewer | May 5, 2005, 5:51pm | #

Whaddya talking about? I know the got dang words to that song, because we danced to that song a billion times in High School (datin' myself here).

Lessee, there's:

Tonight at ten, I'll lay her again.

And there's:

her hand's in my pants

And there's:

Let's go

And there's:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there's:

Okay, let's give it to 'em, right now.

And the rest we weren't quite sure of. The lead singer of the Monacles (who played the song at every dance they were booked for) wouldn't tell us neither. He'd just smile in a knowing sort of way that made us all that much more certain that it was naughty song.

Even though I was warned of what to expect, when I clicked through and actually saw the story I LOL & nearly spit coffee all over the monitor.

Indy Worm, Great story.

The Wine Commonsewer | May 5, 2005, 5:54pm | #

Smack, that IS an ugly baby.

smacky | May 5, 2005, 5:55pm | #

You know what's funny, though? A lot of that shit that I loved back in the day is unlistenable to me now.

Yeah I hear you on that, Lowdog. I'm getting to that point with some bands that I used to think were the end-all, be-all of goodness. (But I do still like Skinny Puppy just fine.)

Roger Sweeny | May 5, 2005, 5:55pm | #

Louie, Louie
Oh, baby now, you're such a drag.

smacky | May 5, 2005, 5:57pm | #

TWC,

Smack, that IS an ugly baby.

Granted. But a trip home? How do you think the artist would feel about that? That's laughable. (And I did, despite my best efforts to control it.)

The Wine Commonsewer | May 5, 2005, 5:59pm | #

"A lot of that shit that I loved back in the day is unlistenable to me now."

That's a function of age Mr. Low D

And if you were a Low-D in school that had an effect on how the music sounded.

The Wine Commonsewer | May 5, 2005, 6:08pm | #

Smack, when I was a skinny high school kid the mini skirt was the rage and we had a dress code that specified that girls had to wear skirts or dresses but they could only be two inches above the knee.

Every day there were dozens of girls on their knees in front of the office (don't even go there guys) with the counselors measuring hem height from the sidewalk with a 12" ruler.

Those who failed were sent home to change. It was an exercise in futility because every girl in the school had at least 4 outfits that were verboten and there was simply no way to enforce it without sending 50 girls a day home.

The year after I graduated they gave up and abolished the dress code. A good move in my book, even if it means chicks wear T-shirts to school with ugly babies on them.--VBG

Jeff | May 5, 2005, 6:09pm | #

Whatever the band plays, the parents in attendance should begin singing (or mumbling, I guess) Louie Louie. Even better, they should all have Louie Louie ringtones on their cells.

Jennifer | May 5, 2005, 6:16pm | #

Number 6-

Ye gods, boy, you don't want to look into the can of worms YOUR question opens up; you'd be happier back in The Village running away from those bouncing ball things. If you're ever incredibly curious AND incredibly bored, go through the Hit and Run archives between late 2003 and late 2004, and read ANY thread concerning modern education, the NEA, "zero tolerance" or public ed in general. You'll find me there, screaming through my keyboard.

Here's the super-short encapsulated version: you know how they say they want teachers to educate kids and prepare them for the future and so forth? Bullshit. Here's what you REALLY have to do: uphold standards high enough to make any world-class university proud, yet make sure the standards aren't so high that any particular student might fail to meet them, because then it's your fault and God help you if the parents decide to complain. Maintain the proper discipline necessary to run a classroom, yet not so proper that it requires kids to do anything they don't want to do anyway. Teach the kids how to be independent citizens of a free and democratic society, while expelling them for possession of an aspirin or a drawing of a gun or making a hand gesture invented by Satan to fuck things up when deaf people fall in love (as I gather from I.W.'s teacher).

Excuse me while I repeat two things here that I've posted many times before:

1. The purpose of modern education is to train kids to accept authority while ensuring they lack the critical thinking skills necessary to consider it; and

2. To fully grasp modern education, you have to imagine that the left-wing and right-wing extremists got together and said, "Let's apply the worst aspects of our respective philosophies to our schools and see what hijinks result."

I don't know this asshole "Louie Louie" guy, but I know his type, as I wasted three years working with and for people like that.

Dynamist | May 5, 2005, 6:27pm | #

Rush Limbaugh covered this story today. He read the lyrics aloud after each chorus of the song was played. His conclusion: lighten up!

I was unable to imagine an potentially offensive reworking of the lyrics. Thanks, TWC, now I can feign indignance with sincerity.

Lowdog | May 5, 2005, 6:27pm | #

smacky - I dunno, Skinny Puppy has no melodies or rhythms in a lot of their music. As a house dj, that doesn't sound good to me anymore. Not that there isn't any SP I don't like anymore, nor am I no longer an admirer of their innovation and uniqueness, but their music doesn't do it for me quite like it did back in HS.

Actually, in HS, my friend and I brought in a SP tape to prove to our humanities class that music did not have to be organised sounds and silence.

TWC - I'm not that old yet, but it happens to the best of us. It's funny, I meet a lot of younger folks as a dj, but luckily I look youngish myself, if ya' know what I mean. ;)

metalgrid | May 5, 2005, 6:28pm | #

I think it's time to play the race card on this one. The school board apparently has an issue with Jamaican related music.

smacky | May 5, 2005, 6:38pm | #

Skinny Puppy has no melodies or rhythms in a lot of their music.
[Skinny Puppy's] music doesn't do it for me quite like it did back in HS.

Agreed. But a lot of their stuff is highly organized, just not in the traditional style of 4/4 (or 2/4) shake yer booty House music. It's organized to be disorganized. Does that make sense?

As for me, I tire of Nivek's vocals. Or at the very least, I got accustomed to them to the point that they no longer especially "wow" me.

the regulator | May 5, 2005, 6:45pm | #

Lowdog and smacky --
I brought in Vivisect VI to a religion class my sophomore year in HS (a catholic school in NJ, and if I remember correctly Gillespie's brother went there too). I wish I could remember my point in using it, but I used the song at the end of side 1 with the "all is a disease" lyrics (and actually a pretty good beat for them). Good times, thankfully I was big enough that noone dared try to beat me up over it.

I don't really dig them much anymore. When I want shouting, I tend to prefer Converge or real old Cave In.

RandyAyn | May 5, 2005, 7:00pm | #

Right on Jennifer!

Lowdog | May 5, 2005, 7:05pm | #

smacky, you're speaking loud and clear to me, girl. But still, we did have a point to make, and it was funny because the other kids were like "holy shit, this is totally unorganised"!

And now that we've totally jacked this thread, what's up with this band Slipknot? I can't figure out their deal. There's, like, 10 people on stage when they play, and most of them don't look like they're doing anything besides freak-out and look weird in whatever get-up they have on. Not to mention I don't really like the music.

At least in hip-hop, when there's 10 people on the stage, some are dancing, some might throw in a "yeah!" every once in a while, etc. Although from a certain point of view, you could say the 'extras' in Slipknot are dancing...

The Wine Commonsewer | May 5, 2005, 7:11pm | #

Dynamist,

As high school kids, we really did think that those were the lyrics and that the rest were equally naughty. We had no clue that this was a Jamaican sea shanty (of sorts). The music was catchy and we liked it. Later the allegedly risque' lyrics added to the mystique. It was a fun song with tantalizing lyrics that we couldn't quite make out. I had no idea until years later that the FBI was looking into the morality of the lyrics.

Interesting too that right in the midst of the FBI investigation that no administrator gave a rats behind that Louie Louie was played at least three times at every school dance.

Low, I AM that old. But I'm not stuck in the '60's either. I find that I'm more picky about music as the years go by (somtimes I'm appalled by some of the crap I listened to way back then--but OTOH some of it has held up well).

JCoke | May 5, 2005, 7:18pm | #

That gesture sounds like the Shocker, which has had a long and wonderful history off giving principals screming headaches.

I was the first person banned from the entire school districts computers because I a)checked my hot-mail and b) changed the wallpaper on a computer. To be fair, I did more stuff than that, but they had no idea. They tried to pin some internet pornography on me. I disproved that, but it didn't make any difference whatsoever re: my punishment (for the hotmail).

I was the Kevin Mitnick of Webb City High School, and I can't even write code. What was really stupid is that I was banned from all computers except in the computer lab and when I had to be on a computer for class. So it had virtually no real effect, except that teachers at the Junior High were asking my sister what I had done (and this was a year or two later). And the librarian thought I was "a bad one".

Lowdog | May 5, 2005, 7:20pm | #

TWC - you in AZ? I just went to your site and was poking around...you've got a lot of AZ-related stuff there.

Oh, and great link to Audie Murphy on your site. Reading about that guy's heroics always brings a tear to my eye. And he was such a little shit, too. Awesome!

smacky | May 5, 2005, 7:23pm | #

Slipknot

I've already wasted too many seconds of my life just acknowledging them.

Back on topic, I always thought that "Louie,Louie" was controversial because the subject matter was not really what it seemed at all (sexual) but some hidden political meaning. I swear I'm not making this up. I'm still trying to find it on Google...but there really is supposed to be a hidden meaning to the lyrics. I am pretty sure that is why there was an investigation, not simply because it was considered sexually profane.

Jason Sonenshein | May 5, 2005, 7:26pm | #

So, let me get this straight. Because one parent complained, she canceled the song, but she will only uncancel it if a majority of parents come forward with support.

There's a really strange minority/majority interplay going on in America these days, where people seem to blindly accept the credo "majority rules" and yet will do anything to cater to an "offended" minority.

Well, as C.L. Stratton of Springfield wrote, "...sometimes the feelings of one or two must trump the education of many."

bago | May 5, 2005, 7:45pm | #

She said,"that's an ugly baby".

For the Decade too late reply:

Yeah, well nobody's sending YOU back home.

Lowdog | May 5, 2005, 7:50pm | #

smacky - sorry. :/

I can't even think of that song in my head. And yes, one parent complains, and that's it. Makes no sense. But as many have demonstrated here, sense seems to be absent from school.

Heh, I made a (not so) funny.

smacky | May 5, 2005, 7:54pm | #

bago,

Nice one, but I already learned early in life not to go there, having used a similar retort on a classmate in the second grade in regards to a comment he made about my Eskimo baby doll. (and having been punished for my witty retort by my livid teacher). Yep, run-ins with the authorities began very early for smacky. I was barely out of my playpen when they began.

[puts lit cigarette butt out with palm]

The Wine Commonsewer | May 5, 2005, 7:59pm | #

LowDog, many thanks for visiting the site. Glad you liked the Audie Murphy link.

I'm about half way between LA and San Diego, up in the hills east of Orange County Ca. Lake Mathews is the terminus of the aqueduct from Lake Havasu.

I do a little work for some people in Az (and other states) which is why there is some Az stuff on there.

The Wine Commonsewer | May 5, 2005, 8:05pm | #

And BTW, on TWC's site at exactly 5:05 there will be a post that says:

It's 5:05 on 05-05-05

Awesome!

Mo | May 5, 2005, 8:11pm | #

JCoke,
Did you go to my Jr. High School? Me and my friends had the same thing, except we got banned for installing and playing crappy games on the school computers. I believe the classic Rogue and, IIRC, King’s Quest. Leisure Suit Larry would have at least been understandable. The worst part was they didn’t actually ban any of my friends, but tired to lock us out with a password that we could make a boot disk to remove and get around. Since we all knew more about computers than our poor librarian, we then installed a BIOS password on the computer, doing her one better, and locking her out. Somehow we were able to come to a truce and were allowed to play our cheesy innocuous games in exchange for letting her in. I also know zero code.

My favorite incident was how my friends and I were able to "hack" into the district computers using the password, and I kid you not, "OUSD" (OUSD stands for Orange Unified School District, the name of the district my school was in). It’s a good thing we were all good kids at the time and were paranoid that the password was a trick to track us down because it was so laughably easy. Looking back, I realized the havoc we would have wrought had we done this 2 years later after teen angst kicked in.

All of this and the reason I almost got expelled was because my dad left his gold-cased, diamond encrusted (ok, just one diamond in the handle) pocketknife that he got after leaving Citibank in my car, while it was parked in the parking lot. One good thing about the media, if you threaten to go to press, they’ll suppress it if you’re a sufficiently sympathetic case. Looking back, I think it would’ve been bitchin to graduate from MIT without a high school diploma. :)

Akira MacKenzie | May 5, 2005, 8:17pm | #

"Rush Limbaugh covered this story today. He read the lyrics aloud after each chorus of the song was played. His conclusion: lighten up!"

Hmmmm... I wouldn't be too surprised if Rush changed his tune (no pun intended) if properly motivated. All it would take is a call from his buddy Dubbya infroming him that Louie Loiue makes Jeusus cry and if Rush doesn't denounce it for the Satanic filth that it is, Jeb will make those doctor-shopping charges stick.

The Wine Commonsewer | May 5, 2005, 8:26pm | #

Mo, Mrs TWC went to Orange High School for a while. Probably a few years before you did based on the level of computer sophistication you describe. I think she was there around 1981-1983. She never graduated, got burned out and left for college at 16.

bago | May 5, 2005, 9:42pm | #

Who didn't get in trouble for using their own boot disk to circumvent "security" menus?

kevrob | May 6, 2005, 12:07am | #

I hit high school just as the 60s were expiring. It was Catholic high, though, so we wore uniforms, and all the lovely female students wore the traditional pleated tartan skirt. The "x inches above the knee" rule was supposed to be in effect, but the darlings had this trick of rolling the wastebands of their kilts, so that they could vary the apparent length without actually rehemming. When one of the sisters suspected that too much thigh was showing, the challenged student would surreptitiously revert her skirt to "regulation length."

While the administration didn't censor the rock n' roll at school dances, I know they weren't happy with the cheerleaders leading the crowds at our football games in a version of the Notre Dame fight song, customized with our school's name, which mainly celebrated the joys of underage drinking.

Kevin

Mr. Nice Guy | May 6, 2005, 8:22am | #

"Rush Limbaugh covered this story today. He read the lyrics aloud after each chorus of the song was played. His conclusion: lighten up!"

Did he give any "yeah, but.." arguements? "This particular instance is silly, but we have a much, much deeper problem with today's entertainment.. (insert rant here)" I can't believe this guy would leave it at that.. like Coulter, his sole job is to throw red meat to the morons, even if he/she don't necessarily eat it themselves.

Worm:

Great story. I, too, am grizzled enough to remember the Satan scare of the 80's. That was so fucked up. I was and am a total dork, and I had a brief stint in my high school's role playing club. That's pretty pathetic in itself, but there was actually a clique within the club that pretty much excluded the other players. But I digress.. this was during the whole "Dungeons and Dragons is the game of Satan" frenzy, and our club was told that we were ABSOLUTELY not to play D&D. So we did Call of Cthulu instead.. as in Lovecraft.

David | May 6, 2005, 8:40am | #

MNG

I remember having D&D stuff confiscated. Anything that was magic/fantasy related and popular was a tool for the devil. My catechism class had handouts about the evils of enjoying Star Wars, stressing the Obi-Wan, Luke, and Yoda were just as evil as Vader and the Emperor because the force was "magic", enabled claivoyance,etc. It was the same nonsense that you see with Harry Potter.

Mr. Nice Guy | May 6, 2005, 9:00am | #

David:

But wait.. according to Lucas, "the force" is actually tiny creatures that live in a being's blood, and the higher concentration of these buggers, the more "force sensitive" the host is! Isn't that brilliant? So it really isn't "magic", you see.. too bad the teachers of your day didn't figure that out.

My high school class was also forced to listen to a tape of some evangelical douchebag (who pronounced "cool" as "kewl".. and this was many years before South Park) "expose" satanic lyrics when records are run backwards. Man, that Beezlebub is one sneaky little fellow, isn't he?

Johno | May 6, 2005, 9:08am | #

", I always thought that "Louie,Louie" was controversial because the subject matter was not really what it seemed at all (sexual) but some hidden political meaning. I swear I'm not making this up. I'm still trying to find it on Google...but there really is supposed to be a hidden meaning to the lyrics. I am pretty sure that is why there was an investigation, not simply because it was considered sexually profane."

Smacky, Dave Marsh wrote a whole book about the song, appropriately titled Louie, Louie, which discusses everything from its original writing to the Kingsmen's version to Iggy Pop's meltdown version captured on, I believe, Metallic KO. He spends a couple chapters discussing the tempest, which did in fact result in a Federal investigation.

There are two reasons the lyrics are unintelligible on the Kingsmen's version. First, the band, a bunch of rank amateur high school kids, had stayed up all night before the recording session practicing the song, and the lead vocalist's cords were shot. Second, they'd never been in a studio before (they were a local live sensation around Seattle (their big venue was, I think, the Spanish Castle, the same place as in the Jimi Hendrix song)) and didn't know that the one mic coming down from the ceiling would pick up every sound they made, the singer sort of stood on tiptoe and tipped his head back, stretching toward the mic. Try that right now; get on tiptoe and stretch your head toward the sky and shout "ALLRIGHTLET'SGIVEITTOTHEMRIGHTNOW!" and you'll see that you too sound like you've been gargling marbles.

The subsequent investigation was an entertaining prelude to the "backward masking" controversy of the 80s. Authorities from school principals to the Effa Bee Eye collected transcriptions and listened to the recording over and over, trying to make "I do her again" or "she get a rag on, I move it above" out of the innocuous gibberish on the record. Since nobody could make it out, the nervous ninnehammers concluded that there *had* to be some sinister freaky-sex-devil-worship rot-yr-brain-right-in-yr-skull thing going on. The investigation was finally dropped, and the FBI declared the song "unintelligible at any speed."

In the interregnum between Elvis' big early hits and British Invasion, all the hoopla turned what would have been a minor regional hit on the level of, say, the Standells' "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White" or the Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction" into a national phenomenon. Naturally.

Number 6 | May 6, 2005, 11:21am | #

I don't suppose anyone remembers Black Flag's version of Louie Louie..

independent worm | May 6, 2005, 11:27am | #

I don't suppose anyone remembers Black Flag's version of Louie Louie.

I do! Wasn't that on the something something 10-and-a-half album? With Drinkin N Drivin and Bastard in Love? Seem to remember those songs all clustered together somewhere...

Jennifer | May 6, 2005, 11:46am | #

I'll bet this superintendent would try to ban Rorschach tests on the grounds that there's hard-core pornography hidden in the inkblots. And then have no idea why every American with a three-digit IQ is laughing.

Jennifer | May 6, 2005, 11:50am | #

This just in: the ban has been rescinded.

http://wwmt.com/engine.pl?station=wwmt&id=16228&template=breakout_local.html

Louis Louis | May 6, 2005, 12:41pm | #

Thanks Jen...

Do you suppose this was all just a publicity stunt to generate interest for their lame parade? If not, it should've been.

the regulator | May 6, 2005, 12:42pm | #

NATAS!! NATAS!! NATAS!!

Number 6 | May 6, 2005, 1:41pm | #

IW-I remember it being on the First Four Years LP, but it may be on Who's Got the 10 1/2 also. I've got the later in the car-I'll have to check at lunch.

David T | May 6, 2005, 1:47pm | #

See http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_316 for the disappointing truth about Louie, Louie...

Drew | May 6, 2005, 2:16pm | #

When I first heard about this story I immediately though that someone had misheard the line "Me think of girl constantly" as "me fucking girl constantly." That's what some people have told me what they thought the lyrics were.

matt | May 6, 2005, 3:41pm | #

From way back up thread smacky said:

"Just one of many retarded stories I could tell you about the administration at my militantly right-wing public high school of yore."

I remember my senior year the principal at my high school banning the "make 7 up yours" t-shirts because they had the phrase "up yours" on the back. So I know where your coming from. (This was a public school where you had to tuck your shirt in to your pants or be sent home, and shorts were only allowed if you wore a shirt with the name of the school on it.)

Dogzilla | May 6, 2005, 8:31pm | #

The elevator at my place of employment plays the MUZAK version of "Louie Louie" and I must admit, it is quite obscene.

John David Galt | May 11, 2005, 3:50pm | #

Now we know what's wrong with the public schools: you can only be an administrator there if you're too dumb to have any business being allowed to graduate from high school.