This tune is a keeper from way back, as is the story behind
it.
On this day in 1965 the FBI, on orders from then Attorney
General Robert Kennedy, ruled on the alleged “pornographic” lyrics to the
classic rock song LOUIE, LOUIE. I have to quote the HISTORY.COM website where I
find some of these factoids because they wrote it up so well:
“…the United States Department of Justice began receiving
letters like the one addressed to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and dated
January 30, 1964. “Who do you turn to when your teen age daughter buys and
brings home pornographic or obscene materials being sold…in every City, Village
and Record shop in this Nation?” that letter began, before going on to make the
specific assertion that the lyrics of “Louie Louie” were “so filthy that I
can-not enclose them in this letter.”
Over the course of the next two years, the FBI gathered many
versions of the putative lyrics to LOUIE LOUIE. They interviewed the man who
wrote the song and officials of the record label that released the Kingsmen’s
smash-hit single. They turned the record over to the audio experts in the FBI
laboratory, who played and re-played “Louie Louie” at 78 rpm, 45 rpm, 33 1/3
rpm and even slower speeds in an effort to determine whether it was
pornographic and, therefore, whether its sale was a violation of the federal
Interstate Transportation of Obscene Material law. “Unintelligible at any
speed” was the conclusion the FBI Laboratory relayed to the investigators in
charge on this day in 1965, not quite exonerating “Louie Louie,” but also not
damning the tune that would go on to become one of the most-covered songs in
rock-and-roll history.”
Ya can’t make this shit up, folks! Alas, the Devil’s Music
wins again. Let me have a hit of that Holy Water, willya? Now the band’s
outfits? Wearing those those should be criminalized…….
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