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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that decodes history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode, we're looking at

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Speaker 1: a rather bizarre chapter in FBI history, the time when

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Speaker 1: agents spent well over a year searching for the supposedly

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Speaker 1: hidden meaning of a pop song. The day was May seventeen,

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five. After more than a year of investigation,

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Speaker 1: the FBI laboratory delivered inconclusive results about the lyrics of

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Speaker 1: the popular song Louis Louis. The lab had sought to

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Speaker 1: determine whether the song included obscene messages, either secretly or overtly,

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Speaker 1: as some members of the public had suggested, but even

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Speaker 1: after a lengthy investigation, the FBI still couldn't say one

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Speaker 1: way or the other. The bureau's conclusion simply stated that,

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Speaker 1: quote the lyrics of the song on this record were

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Speaker 1: not definitely determined by this laboratory examination. It was not

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Speaker 1: possible to determine whether this recording is obscene. J Edgar Hoover,

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Speaker 1: the controversial director of the FBI at the time, chose

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Speaker 1: some rather questionable targets for investigation during his tenure. Throughout

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and sixties, his list of terrorists, spies,

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Speaker 1: and communist sympathizers was expanded to include anti war protesters,

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Speaker 1: civil rights leaders, and even allegedly subversive entertainers. Beloved actor

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Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin was one unexpected target of Hoover's paranoid investigations,

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Speaker 1: and even more ridiculous, so was the song Louie Louie.

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Speaker 1: And just in case the tune isn't already running through

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Speaker 1: your head, here's the version by the Kingsman that the

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Speaker 1: FBI obsessed over. The song and it's controversial lyrics were

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Speaker 1: originally written by R and B singer Richard Berry. In

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Speaker 1: Barry wanted to write a Calypso style song patterned after

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Speaker 1: the popular El Loco Cha Cha by bandleader Rene Tuz.

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Speaker 1: One night, while waiting backstage before a gig, Barry scribbled

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Speaker 1: down the lyrics on a scrap of toilet paper. They

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Speaker 1: tell a fairly straightforward worry about a Jamaican sailor who

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Speaker 1: longs to return home so he can reunite with his

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Speaker 1: long lost love. The song's first person perspective was inspired

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Speaker 1: by Frank Sinatra's take on One for My Baby and

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Speaker 1: one more for the Road. So set him up. Joe,

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Speaker 1: I got a little story you ought to know. That

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Speaker 1: song revolves around a customer wistfully explaining his troubles to

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Speaker 1: a bartender named Joe, and the Louis and Louis Louis

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Speaker 1: seems to fill much the same role. The words are

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Speaker 1: a little easier to make out and the version Barry

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Speaker 1: recorded in n seven, but because he wrote the lyrics

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Speaker 1: using a pigeon English speech pattern, it can still be

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Speaker 1: tough to follow without the words in front of you.

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Speaker 1: Three nights and days we see the seemly a dream

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Speaker 1: the smell. That problem was compounded in ninety three when

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Speaker 1: a Portland's garage rock band called The Kingsman recorded their

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Speaker 1: own version under less than ideal circumstances for starters. The

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Speaker 1: lead singer, Jack Eli, had blown his voice out during

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Speaker 1: a show the night before. The boom mic was also

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Speaker 1: hung so high in the studio that he had to

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Speaker 1: stand on his tiptoes while singing. These factors resulted in

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Speaker 1: vocals that sounds somewhat faint and far away. The other

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Speaker 1: problem with the final recording is that it wasn't meant

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Speaker 1: to be the final recording. The band thought they had

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Speaker 1: enough time to do a rehearsal run through of the song,

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Speaker 1: but when that turned out not to be the case,

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Speaker 1: the first take wound up being the only one. So

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Speaker 1: if you ever thought it sounded a little unpop polish,

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Speaker 1: that's because it is recording troubles aside, though the Kingsman's

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Speaker 1: take on the song turned out to be a massive hit,

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Speaker 1: far more popular than Richard Barry's original. Once radio stations

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Speaker 1: started playing at nationwide, rumors began to swirl that secret

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Speaker 1: messages and dirty words were embedded in the song's unintelligible lyrics.

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Speaker 1: To hear them, you simply had to play the record

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Speaker 1: at a slower speed, or so the story went. At

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Speaker 1: the time, urban legends like that were ascribed to all

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Speaker 1: sorts of songs, perhaps most famously to those of the Beatles.

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Speaker 1: There was rarely much truth to the rumors, but many

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Speaker 1: kids and their parents believe differently. Once Louie Louie became

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Speaker 1: a hit, kids across the US started comparing notes about

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Speaker 1: what they thought they heard in the song. Some of

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Speaker 1: those kids misheard lyrics then fell into the hands of

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Speaker 1: their parents, who assumed those were the actual words. Outraged

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Speaker 1: that their children had been exposed to such obscene material,

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Speaker 1: some parents began writing letters to the Department of Justice

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Speaker 1: and to the FBI calling for a full scale investigation.

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Speaker 1: One such letter, in the FBI's case files, laments that quote,

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Speaker 1: the lyrics are so filthy that I cannot enclose them.

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Speaker 1: In this letter, I would like to see these people,

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Speaker 1: the artists, the record company, and the promoters prosecuted to

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Speaker 1: the fullest extent of the law. We all know there

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Speaker 1: is obscene material available for those who seek it. But

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Speaker 1: when they start sneaking in this material and the guys

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Speaker 1: of the latest teenage rock and roll hit record, these

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Speaker 1: morons have gone too far? How can we stamp out

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Speaker 1: this menace? But worried parents weren't the only ones who

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Speaker 1: accused Louis Louis of being a corrupting influence. Teachers, pastors,

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Speaker 1: and even elected officials had concerns as well. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the governor of Indiana actually banned the song from the

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Speaker 1: radio in his state in nineteen sixty four. By that point,

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Speaker 1: the controversy was too big for the federal government to ignore,

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Speaker 1: and so in February of that year, the FBI set

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Speaker 1: out to determine once and for all whether there were

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Speaker 1: really hidden obscenities buried in Louis Louis. Now. To be fair,

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Speaker 1: part of the FBI's job is to combat obscenity, especially

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Speaker 1: with regard to miners, and if the song did contain

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Speaker 1: coded messages of a sexual nature, that likely would have

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Speaker 1: violated a federal code against the distribution of obscene material

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Speaker 1: to miners. What's absurd is that the bureau felt a

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Speaker 1: full blown investigation was needed to figure out if the

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Speaker 1: rumors were true. You might assume an afternoon of careful

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Speaker 1: listening would be enough to parce out what was really

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Speaker 1: being said in the song, especially since a published version

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Speaker 1: of the lyrics was available. But remember, the rumor was

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Speaker 1: that the dirty messages could only be heard under certain conditions.

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Speaker 1: That meant the FBI would need to test each and

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Speaker 1: every variable. So for the better part of a year

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Speaker 1: and a half, Hoover's agents spent their days hunched over

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Speaker 1: record players, straining to find secret messages and distorted variations

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Speaker 1: of the song. A high number of agents were reportedly

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Speaker 1: assigned to the project. They not only listened to the

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Speaker 1: song at every speed imaginable, they also gathered statements from

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Speaker 1: teenagers who had claimed to have cracked the song's code.

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Speaker 1: Some agents even attended several of the Kingsmen's concerts to

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Speaker 1: see if the song's lyrics differed from the version on

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Speaker 1: the album. The Kingsman's guitarist Mike Mitchell later recalled this

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Speaker 1: surreal experience, saying, quote j Edgar Hoover felt we were

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Speaker 1: corrupting the moral fiber of America's youth. The FBI guys

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Speaker 1: came to our shows and they'd stand next to the

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Speaker 1: speakers to see if we were singing anything off color.

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Speaker 1: It was a different time. The FBI never did find

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Speaker 1: any evidence of obscenity in Louie Louis, though certainly not

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Speaker 1: for a lack of trying. But the bureau never explicitly

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Speaker 1: cleared the song either, only going so far as to

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Speaker 1: say it was quote unintelligible at any speed. In other words,

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Speaker 1: after fifteen months on the job, the FBI laboratory still

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Speaker 1: couldn't say for certain whether Louie Louis was obscene or not.

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Speaker 1: So was it all a huge waste of time? Yes,

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Speaker 1: by almost any measure. The only possible exception besides the

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Speaker 1: story itself, are the wildly off base transcriptions of what

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Speaker 1: kids and the agents thought they heard in the lyrics,

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Speaker 1: and thankfully those are now declassified documents that anyone can read.

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Speaker 1: For example, one of the actual lines from Louie Louis says,

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Speaker 1: quote on the ship I dream she there, I smell

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Speaker 1: the rose in her hair. But someone heard that line

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Speaker 1: a little differently. Their version reads quote and on that

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Speaker 1: chair I lay her there, I felt my bone ah

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Speaker 1: in her hair. So, as it turns out, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: Richard Berry or the Kinsman who had dirty minds, it

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Speaker 1: was American middle schoolers, their parents, and apparently the FBI.

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Speaker 1: I'm gay bluesier am. Hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than he did yesterday. If you

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Speaker 1: want to keep up with the show, you can follow

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d I

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Speaker 1: HC Show. You can also rate and review the show

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts that's always nice, or you can write

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Speaker 1: to us directly at this day at I heart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in History Class.