
FBI Investigation: “Louie Louie”, The Song (1964) - dpflan
https://vault.fbi.gov/louie-louie-the-song/louie-louie-the-song/view
======
wtetzner
Even funnier, they spent two years trying to decipher the lyrics before
realizing that they could get them from the copyright office. [1]

[1]
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150503/22075130880/fbi-s...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150503/22075130880/fbi-
spent-years-researching-lyrics-to-louie-louie-before-realizing-copyright-
office-must-have-them.shtml)

~~~
cosinetau
Ladies and Gentlemen, the United States Government!

------
Declanomous
>My daughter brought home a record of "LOUIE LOUIE", and, I, after reading
that the record had been banned from being played on the air because it was
obscene, proceeded to try to decipher the jumble of words,

>The lyrics are so filthy that I can-not enclose them in this letter.

When I read things like this it makes me sad, because my imagination is
nowhere near as active as this.

The lyrics on the following page don't even make sense. How does "Away we
go"/"We gotta go" become "crab her way down low"? What does that even mean?

>This land of ours is headed for an extreme state of moral degradation what
with this record, the biggest hit movies and the sex and violence exploited on
T.V.

I'm surprised this letter didn't outright say the record was trying to make
his daughter sleep with people of different races. What a tool.

~~~
jerf
"When I read things like this it makes me sad, because my imagination is
nowhere near as active as this."

It's actually a fun exercise, and educational. Make a list of some dirty nasty
words you'd like to find in Louie Louie. Or even some innocent ones. Make it
10 or 20, let's say, but try to avoid the real lyrics. (Don't look them up in
advance, though, that will scramble the results.) Read it over a few times to
familiarize your brain with what's in there. Now listen to the song. I
virtually guarantee you will now hear at least some of those words in there.
When you are actively listening for something, you tend to hear it.

Since no-one else has used the word so far in this discussion, see also the
idea of Mondegreens:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen)

~~~
YCode
The irony is in order to match those patterns you'd have to have all that info
floating around in your head before listening to it, meaning the people who
were offended had far dirtier minds than the casual listeners who were
supposedly being affected.

~~~
Sumaso
More likely your associating that style of music and the artist to that image.
Essentially your hearing what you want to hear.

------
grandalf
It's deeply embarrassing to me that our government agencies are involved in
regulating professional baseball and in being the morality/obscenity police.

~~~
x2398dh1
That is what I thought upon reading the title, however if you go through the
document, you can see that the FBI was responding to complaints from the
public...which actually is impressive, if you think about it.

When I read the letter on page 13 sent by the parent complaining about,
"lyrics so filthy that I cannot enclose them in this letter," \- I imagine an
FBI agent sitting at his desk, rubbing his forehead in frustration, scanning
through this among a pile of hundreds of other similarly inane and paranoid
letters from parents.

Government workers just can't win sometimes - if they address problems brought
to them by the public, it's deeply embarrassing that they are addressing such
insignificant problems. If they don't address problems brought to them by the
public, they are flagrantly defying democratic values.

What's embarrassing is not that the government "are involved in" being
morality/obscenity police, it's embarrassing that people ask them to be
morality/obscenity police. It's not like they just, "got involved in it," out
of no where. Squeaky wheels get the grease.

~~~
grandalf
I agree that absurdities like this have their roots in the public's demand for
backward things, but this is made easy by the consolidation of power at the
Federal level for things like this.

Imagine a world in which a concerned citizen contacted local or state level
authorities with this sort of complaint -- it would not have the same sting of
morality policing, in my opinion.

~~~
philwelch
Conversely, imagine a world where concerned citizens could only contact local
and state authorities about, for example, racial discrimination by the local
and state authorities.

~~~
grandalf
While the prevailing narrative is that Federal intervention in this sort of
thing is beneficial, I think that if you adopt the view that morality is
largely a function of economic progress, most of the moral progress enforced
top-down is largely inevitable over a 5-10 year time horizon.

The same backward idea of causality that motivates neoconservative
interventions in foreign governments motivates the aggressive use of Federal
power to coerce lagging states into compliance.

Driving through impoverished areas of the US is like taking a time machine
back 30 to 50 years. In my opinion it is fairly arrogant to assume that an
impoverished region's morality ought to be in lockstep with an affluent
region, when only a few decades earlier the affluent region was unabashedly
worse.

The most harmful aspect of this is the idea that the average person in the
affluent area is enlightened. By definition, the average person is _never_
enlightened, he is simply average. Yet politically, the idea of a moral
crusade is irresistable.

------
yakult
>all three government agencies dropped their investigations because they were
unable to determine what the lyrics of the song were, even after listening to
the records at speeds ranging from 15 rpm to 75 rpm.

~~~
INTPenis
They should have tried playing it backwards at 33rpm.

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rrauenza
Snopes has a nice article summarizing the history / controversy over the song:
[http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/louie.asp](http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/louie.asp)

------
roadbeats
Does anyone know what happens when you write a song that makes FBI decide to
not drop the investigation ? How will FBI punish a singer ?

~~~
longwave
In 1986 the Dead Kennedys distributed a poster of H.R. Giger's "Penis
Landscape" artwork inside their Frankenchrist album, and the band were charged
with distribution of material harmful to minors and brought to trial. The case
considered the music and lyrics as well as the artwork, but ended in a hung
jury.

------
6stringmerc
Also relevant:

Tipper Gore is responsible for the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics"
stickers, because, as everybody knows, the only way kids ever learn swear
words or dirty concepts is from music, and never, ever from their Parents,
Siblings, Neighbors, Friends, Classmates...

[http://www.newsweek.com/2015/10/09/oral-history-tipper-
gores...](http://www.newsweek.com/2015/10/09/oral-history-tipper-gores-war-
explicit-rock-lyrics-dee-snider-373103.html)

To me, the most "obscene" concept in the whole "Louie Louie" and PMRC crusades
is how willingly some people want to bury their head in the sand and force
everybody else to do the same. Ugh. Puritans.

~~~
ajosh
I often feel like sentiment such as this assumes that these kinds of notices,
movie ratings, "clean" / radio versions of media, etc are solely meant for
teenagers. Maybe that's how they relate to it - as some kind of restriction as
a teen.

Keep in mind that while you will learn this stuff in your life, for very young
children, there is definitely a lot that is inappropriate whether it is sex,
language or violence. A 2 year old is unable to fully understand what is
appropriate when. They are not ready to handle many of these concepts.

Beyond that, if an adult doesn't want to listen to something or watch
something, this helps them. If they've don't want to see or hear something,
why should anyone else care?

~~~
TelmoMenezes
> there is definitely a lot that is inappropriate whether it is sex, language
> or violence

I always had a problem with this (very American, in my view) concept of
"appropriate". What does it mean exactly? It seems to be hiding stuff that is
either ill-defined or unlikely to withstand deep scrutiny.

I have no problem believing that depictions of sex and violence might be bad
for young children in some way, but I would argue that there is a burden on
people who claim this to spell out out the bad consequences could be.

Is it that it affects children psychologically? If that is the claim, in what
way? And is there any research that shows this to be the case?

Or is it that they could say something that would create social embarrassment
for the parents? If that is the case, one has to ask: does it make sense to
place such a burden on free culture for this rather minor reason? And doesn't
it just perpetuate useless social norms?

In the end, I suspect this is (at least partially) good old-fashioned
puritanism. I am willing to accept that I am wrong, but I think I am right in
reacting with scepticism towards vague moral proclamations such as "it is
inappropriate!"

~~~
caseysoftware
Or you could look at it like an ingredient label on food or calorie count on
restaurant menus.

Yes, there are allergens but there are other things that people just want to
avoid due to personal preference.

Proper labeling can be helpful in lots of areas.

~~~
thatcat
Proper labeling can be helpful, but the music/movie content regulators go a
lot further than labeling in their restriction on content. Basically teens are
forced to torrent content that seems obscene to christians until they are 18.
This is a form of market regulation that seems more likely about pushing
christian cultural homogeneity onto a group that can't politically object,
than simply labeling what the content is.

------
timbrah
For those unfamiliar, this is the song:
[https://youtu.be/1RZJ4ESU52U](https://youtu.be/1RZJ4ESU52U)

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seszett
Am I the only one to get this page?

[https://down.xn--wda.fr/2017-05-17/2C4yYWqWk9.png](https://down.xn--
wda.fr/2017-05-17/2C4yYWqWk9.png)

"We're sorry... The request has been blocked."

It happens from work, from home (same ISP though) and also from my servers
(using curl).

~~~
pjc50
Just look at that URL! Something is redirecting you to a punycode site.

~~~
robfos
That is an upload site. They haven't been redirected! That's just where they
chose to upload their screenshot :)

------
rev_null
The greatest irony is that they missed the drummer saying "fuck" after hitting
his sticks together.

~~~
jrimbault
That's The Beatles isn't it ?
[http://wgo.signal11.org.uk/wgo.htm](http://wgo.signal11.org.uk/wgo.htm)

~~~
longwave
If you listen carefully you can hear it at 0:56:
[https://youtu.be/1RZJ4ESU52U?t=56s](https://youtu.be/1RZJ4ESU52U?t=56s)

------
VT_Drew
Even in 1964 there was lots of wasteful government spending, it has only got
worse over the years.

------
poulsbohemian
Every "real" Washingtonian knows Louie Louie is really the state song.

~~~
pc2g4d
Love the username

~~~
poulsbohemian
I feel a little guilty about it -- I lived in Poulsbo for about 10 years, but
moved to eastern Washington a few years ago. No idea what I would use instead
though.

------
rurban
Absolute nonsense school complaint, Tipper Gore style. The dirtiest parts are
these lines:

    
    
        It won't be long, me see my love
        Me take her in my arms and then
        I tell her I never leave again

------
arzt
Aside: there's a great Todd Snider song about this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPY0tomARjU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPY0tomARjU)

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theprop
Who is Louie Louie?

Is it the guy's girlfriend? Or is a guy friend who the guy wants to go with
him to the ship to go see his girl?

I'm sorry if this is really obvious and I'm missing something...

~~~
SpoilerAlert
AFAIK, it's not a story, it's not lore, it's a song with funny lyrics.

Personally I prefer music without lyrics, since they rarely make sense or
matter... the singing is just another instrument to me.

~~~
qbrass
The song is about the singer taking a ship to Jamaica to return to the girl
they can't stop thinking about. Spending the whole trip dreaming about her and
wanting to get there sooner.

Who Louie Louie is is never clarified. It could be the girl, but could also be
the ship or the captain being urged to go faster.

------
ivarojha
Ohh.. well, I have this as my ringtone since Knight and Day released. Roy
Miller (Tom Cruise) had it as his mobile ringtone in the movie.

------
hudibras
For what it's worth, the lyrics I remember as a kid were the first two verses
from page 35 with the final verse from page 22.

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jlebrech
what would get a song banned nowadays? making the lyrics instructional such as
a meth song or bomb song?

------
nom
I really want to go back in time and and tell tales about the the 21th
century. About our music, movies, the internet, smartphones, how porn is now
common place and available to everyone, even children. And then watch them
struggle to comprehend the situation.

Edit: Why the downvote? It would be so awesome to see the jaws drop.

------
tronje
tl;dr:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie#Lyrics_investigati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie#Lyrics_investigation)

