Talk:Louie Louie

Changes
I made some changes which reflect the fact that different sources say different things about this song (particularly the Kingsmen's recording), rather than the other changes which have favored one or the other. For example, the cost of the session is agreed to be $50 everywhere except the Kingsmen's Web page, which says $36. The "boom mike" story is only disputed by Robert Lindahl, who isn't credited with being the sound engineer - the only source that seems to place Robert Lindahl in that booth is Lindahl himself (the only one I'm unclear about is Dave Marsh's book; the previously included Web site mentioned nothing about Lindahl at all). Plus, if he was involved, Lindahl would have reason to place the blame on Ely for the recording quality rather than his own engineering. (He may point out that the Raiders' version sounded different, but it can also be pointed out that the Kingsmen's other recordings also sounded much clearer than "Louie, Louie".)

Until something more definitive comes along, it's best to leave in all the possible sources. - Scooter 23:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The following paragraph needs to be cleaned up. If some of the statements are from Ely, doesn't he need to referenced and those enclosed with quotation marks? Who is "we" in the last sentence? (...This is exactly the way his head was pitched according to Ely. This seems unlikely, however, in view of the fact that it was recorded by professional personnel in a dedicated recording studio. There were no professional personnel in the studio that day except maybe Lindahl. We set up all our own equipment in a circle facing each other underneath an overhead microphone up by the ceiling at which I sang/shouted the lyrics.) Welby99 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Welby99 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit based on Direct Experience
The boom mic story is not disputed by anyone else because Robert Lindahl was the only person from NWI present. How do I know? I am his daughter. The boom story always makes my father roll his eyes. Those familiar with the advertising business in Portland, Oregon during the late 50s and 60s knew that Northwestern was known for high quality broadcast radio and television ads, corporate films (United Good Neighbor, Louisiana Pacific, Georgia Pacific, Weyerhauser, PGE) and radio shows (Stories of Pacific Wonderland sponsored by Pacific Power and Light), symphony recordings, and on a more infrequent basis, they also produced records for a wide variety of musicians and genres. Along with this body of professionally esteemed work, they had a reputation for providing a studio equipped with what was at the time considered high quality equipment. A Neumann U47 condenser mic (now at the Seattle Music Experience)on a correctly positioned stand was used for vocals and a RCA 44BX was used for the bass. My father had the dubious honor of taking on that recording session as he had sent everyone else home for the night. As he put it, "it was a nothing thing.. I didnt think any more about it until the Raiders came in and recorded the same song a couple of days later." And as he summarized the event, he was eager to get home to his dinner and his family and be done with "some itinerant band that just wanted to hear themselves". But regardless of his feelings about this job, it is extremely unlikely, given my father's expertise and excruciating attention to detail, that the session equipment was set up in a slipshod manner.I suspect that the Kingsman (unlike the Raiders) weren't clear on which microphones were actually 'live' as opposed to which were just "in the vicinity" not to mention how to sing into a recording studio mic. There were alot of mics there that night.. on stands.. against the wall...sitting around the floor and they had a half hour to figure it out. Obviously they didn't. If their recording quality improved on later records it was probably due to their becoming more savvy and sophisticated about equipment and being able to afford more than a half hour of time.

In the 90s, Robert "Bob" Lindahl, as the sound engineer on that record and original owner of NWI, was invited to attend, along with the Kingsman and others, a ceremony held by the Oregon Historical Society marking the anniversary of Louie Louie. A plaque was placed on the outside wall of the original site of Northwestern Inc Studios at SW 12th in downtown Portland. (the plaque was stolen within the week) Eric Proedahl, founder of louielouie.net and who is now finishing a documentary on the history of Louie Louie also attended and met with my father at his home and interviewed him on camera. As for Dave Marsh, he never contacted anyone connected with NWI but relied solely on the memories of the Kingsman. He died before I was old enough to care about Louie Louie and the nonsense attributed to my father or his studio. The Snopes website people, when contacted by me, weren't interested in any first hand accounts of the recording. My father pretty much summed up the irony of the controversy in a early 90's phone interview he had with columnist Phil Stanford, then of the Oregonian. "Hell.. I gave them a hit record. What more did they want?"

Im my editing I have restored some links and taken out skeptical remarks concerning Bob Lindahl's role and observations as sound engineer. Rain1222


 * Certainly an authoritative source, if not an unbiased one. I'm content to leave it as is, with a slight change to make the source clear. - Scooter 21:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Rights
How can lyrics have been "introduced into the public domain by David Spector"? It is still a derivative work, deriving from work to which he would not have rights. At the very least, we should be giving a an accurate fair use justification rather than this patently false claim. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Lyrics Wrong?
the smoking gun had an article stating these http://www.thesmokinggun.com/louie/louiereal1.html were indeed the real lyrics (closer to the '65 FBI files) Are the lyrics in the article the one the Kingsman sang? http://www.thesmokinggun.com/louie/louie.html

Other Northwest recordings
We really don't make clear here the extent to which the song was a "required figure" for Northwest bands from about 1963 to at least 1971. There must be 40 or so recordings from the region. The current structure doesn't really let me get at this, and I'm not sure how I would want to restructure, but if anyone takes a shot at it, one worth mentioning is The Topics from Bremerton, Washington a soul band and mostly a lounge act, whose one and only album, 1971's self-released Living Evidence, has a great 6-minute version of "Louie, Louie", re-released recently on the Wheedle's Groove compilation (Light in the Attic, 2004). Probably the one and only mention they deserve in Wikipedia. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Article Has Wrong Title?
Richard Berry stated in a September 1988 interview for Esquire magazine that the proper title for the song was "Louie Louie", with no comma. - Chadbryant 20:23, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

(attack removed


 * Pwned! Seriously, "Louie Louie" seems to be common on the internet - both the Straight Dope and the Smoking Gun omit the comma - and I would support a move to that name. But it's not likely to happen, though. -[[User:Ashley Pomeroy|Ashley

== Pomeroy]] 18:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Bad Info
Edited out some erroneous statements regarding my father, Bob Lindahl, being "locked out of the control room by Ken Chase". And they would have walked out of the place with a tape?? C'mon...get real people. Rain1222 04:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: the "Louie Louie Riff"
"Riff" may need to be more clearly defined for this section. The "Sloopy" variants as well as "You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'" do use the same harmonic progression, but the rhythm is different even though the phrase is of a similar length. May not matter to most, but it was immediately clear to this musician, and depending on how strictly "riff" is defined, these songs might not belong in such a list (at least, not without a proper notation of the difference). Furthermore, there are probably a lot of omitted works as well, but that's for someone a lot more bored than me ATM. Renaissongsman 03:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The "Sloopy" variants as well as "You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'" do use the same harmonic progression? You certainly could have fooled me, not to mention the purveyors of several versions of each on the 'Net.


 * The harmonic progression of Louie Louie is basically A-D-Em-D throughout (obviously transposed to the key of your choice). Right now I can only think of one other song that uses the same progression: Eric Clapton's She's Waiting.


 * Paul Magnussen (talk) 17:12, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Status in Washington State
According to the State's own list of official symbols, Louie Louie is NOT the state's official rock song. There was a move to make it such, but it apparently died in the legislature. I changed the first line and reference of the "Legacy" section to make the uncertainty clear. It would certainly be true to say that "Louie Louie" is often regarded as the state's unofficial state rock song, but I don't have a reference to support the assertion, so I have gone tentatively with uncertainty. --Haruo 19:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not (although I wish it were), so I've removed it. See Washington State Symbols]. Travisl 22:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Guitarist breaks drumstick?
In paragraph 7 of section: Version by The Kinsmen Quote: "About :54 into the song the guitarist broke one of his drums sticks" I don't know how a guitarist would be able to break one of his drum sticks. Is this line supposed to be "...the drummer broke one of his drum sticks" or "...the guitarist broke one of his guitar strings"? I don't know so I will leave it up to someone else to fix. Darth vader 007 21:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Louie Lou-eye
I don't see anything in the article about the Kingmen's singer pronunciation of the name as "Lou-ie Lou-eye" (other than a mention of that fact that the lyrics are practically unintelligible throughout their entire rendition). Was this close to the original pronuciation by Chuck Berry, or was it a contrivance by Jack Ely? — Loadmaster 22:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * RICHARD Berry, not Chuck...! He sings Lou-ie Lou-ie throughout, not Lou-eye. And you can make out what he's singing.  Ghmyrtle 00:46, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong on both counts. Anyone with ears would hear Lou-eye. The other words are unintelligible.Lestrade (talk) 15:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)Lestrade


 * I still don't see anything in the article about the pronundiation of the two Louies. 98.45.173.213 (talk) 19:08, 19 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Good point. I added a sentence on pronunciation variations at the end of the section on the Richard Berry version. Relbats (talk) 20:32, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 10:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Toots and the Maytals
This article has no reference to the version by Toots and the Maytals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.192.234.167 (talk) 20:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Profanity in Kingsmen version
If you listen to the Kingsmen version, you can clearly hear someone yell "Fuck" when the drummer botches a fill. I remember reading that it was drummer Lynn Easton who did this. I just tried to add this info but got it reverted and was told of a sandbox.76.244.25.124 (talk) 02:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the reasoning behind not including the description of the obscenity in the article, as it's ambiguous, and Wikipedia is not supposed to be censored, except where potentially libelous, which it wouldn't be. --139.130.97.94 (talk) 04:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not censored, but it is also verifiable and not original research. Find a reliable source that concludes that certain obsenities can be heard in this version and it can be added to the article. -- The Red Pen of Doom  14:16, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

References added.Relbats (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:42, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

a slight change
Why is the change from 3/4 to 4/4 characterized as slight? Kdammers (talk) 06:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Futurama
Can someone add to the article that the futurama theme is a cover (or at least heavily based) on Louie Louie 219.89.43.157 (talk) 02:03, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

merge
Please note : There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs/coverversions with the purpose of trying to establish a standard rule for merge/separate different versions of the same song. Please make known your opinions on the matter. --Richhoncho (talk) 13:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Coffee and Cigarettes
It's mentioned in the article that Iggy Pop's Version of the song was used during the closing credits for the film "Coffee and Cigarettes". Shouldn't it also be mentioned that Richard Berry's original version was used during the opening credits for the same film? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.81.25.79 (talk) 03:13, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Merge from International Louie Louie Day
The ILLD aricle has close to no content directly related to the page title, International Louie Louie Day.

At the same time, all its content is directly related to Louie Louie or "Recognition".

Content restructured to add relevance to the date selection process for ILLD. Relbats (talk) 01:14, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

(BTW, "Legacy" and "Recognition" section must be reshuffled; e.g., section "Washington State Song" is IMO rather "Recognition" than "Legacy".) Staszek Lem (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

"Legacy" section retitled as "Cultural impact" with "Recognition" section included. Relbats (talk) 01:14, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Replaced the rhythm illustration
The previous illustration, aside from being very roughly drawn, puts the downbeat (the barlines) in the wrong place. You can tell by where the chords change. Also this song is more suited to 4/4 meter than 2/2, and the last note of each half of the chord progression is longer than the others. Thus the eighth notes and quarter notes. MJ (t • c) 11:08, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Chaotic guitar break?
In what way is the guitar break "chaotic"? Granted it uses an extremely limited vocabulary, but it seems to me an excellent example of the pre-Clapton style, and it suits the song perfectly.

Unless someone objects, or (preferably) proposes a better one, I'm going to delete this word.

Paul Magnussen (talk) 15:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that the guitar break is not "chaotic" and that the word should be deleted. The guitar break is also called "wacky" at the end of the paragraph.  This isn't really accurate either, but is part of the quoted passage from the Marsh book that is cited. Relbats (talk) 15:14, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Done; I left"wacky" in, since it's part of the quotation. Paul Magnussen (talk) 17:00, 9 May 2015 (UTC)