28th Day Of Black History Month ... "No Further Investigation" ...

________________________________________________________________________________________________

LOUIE LOUIE

began innocently enough

on the backside of

You are My Sunshine

 "Backside"
means B-side 
or Flip Side
(as the label suggests)

RICHARD BERRY
wrote Louie Louie
 in 1955
which was the year after
he sang lead
(uncredited)
on the infamous
Riot in Cell Block #9 

That same year,
Richard wrote
a funnier version
of Riot entitled
The Big Break 

But Richard's big break
as a composer
came in 1963 when
the KINGSMEN
recorded
Louie Louie

And the lyrics
sounded obscene

If you multiplied
1954 x 1963
the result would be
equal to the number
of teenagers
(and other living things)
 who heard those dirty lyrics

But the FBI
proved otherwise
on page fifty-six
of a one hundred nineteen page
investigation
 

The only difference between
the composer's lyrics
and what the Kingsmen sang
is AWAY WE GO*
was replaced with
WE GOTTA GO

Feel free to prove me wrong
by listening to
Richard Berry's Louie Louie
back-to-back with
the Kingsmen's Louie Louie
     
The title of this page
is taken from the last sentence
of the FBI investigation.

The person to whom
this page is dedicated
is, of course,
RICHARD BERRY

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Footnotes
* Actually, Richard used the words 
"Me gotta go."

It behooves me to end 
the Black History Month pages
with a link to
Civil Rights Heroes
________________________________________________________________________________________________