Throwing back to the week of January 18, 1964, we find one of history’s greatest rock-n-roll songs tucked away at #2 behind Bobby Vinton’s ‘There! I’ve Said it Again..’

The Kingsmen’s ‘Louie Louie’ never made it to #1 but it is one of the best-known rock songs of all time, one of the most covered, and one of the most misunderstood. It’s an unintelligible three-chord masterpiece.

This song was originally written by Richard Berry as a calypso-flavored ditty about a Jamaican sailor missing the girl who waits for him back home.

The Portland-based Kingsmen heard Berry’s version and made it a part of their live shows. They recorded their own version in one and a half takes, with 19-year-old lead singer Jack Ely standing on tiptoe to reach a dangling microphone and slurring his words through his braces.

The result was an irresistibly sloppy track that quickly marched up the charts, attracting scrutiny along the way. Convinced that the garbled lyrics contained profanity, the FBI launched an investigation and the governor of Indiana banned the song. The outcry, of course, only led to increased popularity.

I can only imagine what that Indiana governor would make of some of the songs on today’s Top 40.