Louie Louie Berry

LOUIE LOUIE (Richard Berry)

“Louie Louie” is an American rhythm and blues song written by Richard Berry in 1955 and best known for the 1963 hit version by the Kingsmen. It has become a standard in pop and rock, with hundreds of versions recorded by different artists. The song was originally written and performed in the style of a Jamaican ballad. It tells, in simple verse–chorus form, the first-person story of a Jamaican sailor returning to the island to see his lady love. “Louie Louie” has been recognized by organizations and publications worldwide for its influence on the history of rock and roll, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, National Public Radio, VH1, Rolling Stone, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Recording Industry Association of America. (More from Wikipedia)

There about midway through the fourth side of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 was a song that I didn’t think quite fit in: “Farmer John” by the Premiers. It was earlier than any of the other tracks, dating from 1964, and it sounded like it was recorded live at somebody’s picnic. The lyrics were simple – “Farmer John . . . I’m in love with your daughter . . . whoa-oh-oooh” – as was the beat and the slow, loping groove; but it just kept growing on me. Eventually Neil Young recorded a cover of the song in the same style on his excellent 1990 album Ragged Glory. The songwriter is Richard Berry – he is not related to Chuck Berry but has some seminal songs to his credit nonetheless; “Louie Louie” heads the list, but “Have Love, Will Travel” is almost as good. (See below).

(January 2011)

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Stiv Bators, the front man for one of the best punk rock bands the Dead Boys was trying to reinvent himself as a pop singer and released one excellent album in 1980 called Disconnected and a lot of other singles.

Richard Berry (no relation to Chuck Berry) is the author of the immortal “Louie Louie”; one time, Stiv Bators also recorded a version of that song with a whole studio full of people – the new lyrics that he supplied extolled the virtues of his new home town and gave it the name, “L.A. L.A.”.

(September 2012)

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I’m not sure where I got the idea that “Farmer John” was written by Richard Berry, but I was mistaken about that; the song was actually written by Don “Sugarcane” Harris and Dewey Terry, who originally recorded the song in the mid-1950’s under the name Don and Dewey. Sorry about that. I’m still glad that I had something to say about Richard Berry though; he wrote some great songs, and not just “Louie Louie”.

(January 2014)

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The only song on Magic Lantern not written by the bandmembers in Haymarket Square is one of my all-time favorite songs, “Train Kept A-Rollin’” – in a world filled with great train songs, this might the best of them all for my money. The first time I encountered “Train Kept A-Rollin’” was on the Pebbles, Volume 10 LP, one of the first Pebbles albums that I purchased. This rapid fire rendition by the Bold (also known as Steve Walker and the Bold) – which actually has some train sounds in the intro and at the end – is still the best I have heard; but like the Bo Diddley song “I’m a Man”, the Van Morrison song “Gloria”, and the timeless “Louie Louie” that was written by Richard Berry, I have never heard a version of “Train Kept A-Rollin’” that wasn’t great.

(June 2015)

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Anyway, the music is the hard part when doing psychedelic rock; for many would-be psychedelic rock bands, just about any lyrics will do, and the stranger the better. I was planning to come up with some examples of those lyrics, but they were a little scarce on the Internet. However, this excerpt from the Allmusic review by Todd Kristel of the Pebbles, Volume 3 LP actually does a better job of describing the songs than the lyrics themselves would:

“This compilation features Higher Elevation’s ‘The Diamond Mine’, a showcase for the nonsense rambling of disc jockey Dave Diamond; Teddy & the Patches’ ‘Suzy Creamcheese’, which manages to rip off both Frank Zappa and ‘Louie Louie’; Crystal Chandlier’s ‘Suicidal Flowers’, which sounds like the Doors drenched in fuzz guitar; William Penn Fyve’s ‘Swami’, which is such a self-conscious attempt to evoke 1967 that it’s hard to believe it was actually released that year; Jefferson Handkerchief’s ‘I’m Allergic to Flowers’, which was presumably intended as a novelty song; Calico Wall’s ‘Flight Reaction’, a fascinating acid-damaged glimpse into the mind of a passenger who’s sitting in an airplane before takeoff and worrying about a possible crash; the Hogs’ (allegedly the Chocolate Watchband under a different name) ‘Loose Lip Sync Ship’, which consists of an instrumental passage that mutates into Zappa-influenced weirdness; the Driving Stupid’s ‘The Reality of (Air) Fried Borsk’ and ‘Horror Asparagus Stories’, which feature precisely the kind of grounded lyrics that you’d expect; the Third Bardo’s ‘Five Years Ahead of My Time’, a genuinely good number even though it doesn’t sound five minutes ahead of its time; [and] the Bees’ ‘Voices Green and Purple’, which made the Nuggets Box Set along with the Third Bardo song . . . ”

(July 2015)

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The most famous case of supposedly offensive lyrics in popular music is “Louie Louie”, specifically the version by the Kingsmen. The original version of “Louie Louie” was released in 1957 by Richard Berry (who is also the songwriter); it has a Latin American beat, and the lyrics are clearly about a sailor pining away for his woman back home.

(June 2016)