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Louie Louie

I would have heard 'Louie Louie' as a child: certainly I was familar with The Kinks' version of it from an early age. At which point it became clear to me that The Kingsmen's version was the definitive one, I don't recall. I wouldn't have spared the song much thought until reading Lester Bangs' remarks about it in one of the pieces included in the book Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, ca. 1987.

A year or two after that, while still at university, I bought a compilation album on cassette called Frat Rock which began with the irresistible one-two combination of 'Woolly Bully' and 'Louie Louie'. I ended up giving that tape away to a friend of my mother's who was enamoured of it and had asked if I might copy for her.

Last year I found it on 7" vinyl in a charity shop: it cost me a pound. The Old Gold reissue label had first re-released it in 1980, with this a later-'80s example, judging by the barcode on the label. The back of the sleeve boasts "NOW OVER 1000 BACK TO BACK HITS AVAILABLE", with the some of those hits' titles also printed on the sleeve - for example (just picking some of the Ls): 'Leader of the Pack', 'Light My Fire' and 'Lola'. The B-side is 'Jolly Green Giant', with an amusing litany of vegetable names in its lyrics.

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