COLUMN: '60s songs left listeners 'All Shook Up'

Working on last week's column about summer in the "good ol' days" got me thinking about the music we listened to then. American popular music has ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime. Which is which, of course, varies with the taste of the listener. When I was in junior and senior high we listened to such songs as "The Purple People Eater," "Monster Mash" and "Alley Oop." Our parents had listened to songs just as corny, e.g. 1944's "Mairzy Doats" and 1942's "Der Fuehrer's Face." But in the mid-1960s some parents became alarmed at songs with lyrics that were suspected of hidden naughtiness. Three songs in particular came under scrutiny: "Wooly Bully," "Ode to Billy Joe" and "Louie Louie." 

"Wooly Bully" was the product of Sam the Sham -- real name Domingo Samudio -- and the Pharohs and was the hit song of 1965. You could hardly turn on your transistor radio without hearing it. Compared to the No. 1 of just five years before, it showed that popular music was headed in a new direction. Billboard Magazine's hit in 1960 had been bandleader Percy Faith's melodius arrangement of "Theme from 'A Summer Place,'" which had been in the number one position for nine straight weeks.

"Wooly Bully," according to its composer, was a novelty song, and was about a conversation between two women, "Matty" and "Hatty," who were discussing the American buffalo and the desirability of learning to dance, which, of course made no sense then and makes none now. But the lyrics were not very clear and there were radio stations which banned the song from their playlist. The group later recorded a single titled "Banned in Boston," a musical comment on their views toward censorship. 

The complete lyrics to "Wooly Bully" are available on Google, and the only words which one might object to are in reference to dancing: "Matty told Hatty, 'That's the thing to do. Get you someone really to pull the wool with you.'" 

What exactly does "pull the wool" mean? You decide.

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The second song was a ballad by a female vocalist with a guitar, accompanied by an orchestral string section. The music and words to "Ode to Billy Joe" were the product of Bobbie Gentry, and the song was in the No. 1 position for four weeks in 1967. The music and lyrics were about as far from "Wooly Bully" as one could get, with Gentry's dark, plaintive clearly sung lyrics telling of a tragedy, the death of a young man named Billy Joe who committed suicide at the Tallahatchie Bridge. 

The story was told in a narrative style, and the singer related much of the story over the supper table, her family making comments about Billy Joe's death while passing the biscuits. The line that got the listeners attention came when the mother mentions that the preacher said "he saw a girl that looked a lot like you" with Billy Joe on the bridge and that 'they were dropping something into the muddy water..." 

What was it they dropped? Ms Gentry, then in her early 20s, never said. Many listeners thought that the singer/narrator in the song was referring to a miscarrage, for which Billie Joe, overcome by grief, killed himself. Ms Gentry is said to have commented that the song was really about apathy; the tragic death of a neighbor doesn't even slow down the passing of the mashed potatoes. 

"Ode to Billie Joe" won two Grammy awards for Bobbie Gentry, one in the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance category and one for Best New Artist. 

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The third song left "Wooly Bully" and "Ode to Billy Joe" in the dust, as far as controversy was concerned. The song that raised discussion of popular song lyrics to new heights was "Louie Louie," written in 1955 and recorded in 1957 by Richard Berry. It has since been sung and recorded by dozens of bands. The most well-known version was recorded by The Kingsmen in 1963. The lyrics by lead singer Jack Ely were very difficult to make out -- some say deliberately so. Ely said later that the recording microphone was too high and he had to strain with his head back to be heard. Other stories are that he had a cold and that he had just had dental work done. 

The song itself is in the form of a Jamacian ballad in pidgin English, sort of like Harry Belafonte's classic 1956 "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song). The singer is telling a bartender, "Louie," that he has to return to his girl, "Me gotta go now..." 

I can remember listening to the song over and over, trying to decode the "secret lyrics" supposedly to be found therein. I had no more luck than did the FBI. An outraged parent was said to have contacted U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy in early 1964 about the suggestive lyrics in "Louie Louie" and Kennedy had the FBI and FCC investigate. According to Dave Marsh's 1992 book, "Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock'n'Roll Song; Including the Full Details of Its Torture and Persecution at the Hands of the Kingsmen, J. Edgar Hoover's F.B.I., and a Cast of Millions; and Introducing, for the First Time Anywhere, the Actual Dirty Lyrics": "After two years of investigation [the FBI], concluded that the recording could not be interpreted, that it was 'unintelligible at any speed,' and therefore the Bureau could not find that the recording was obscene."

More than 1,000 versions of the lyrics are said to exist. You can read them for yourself by going to Google on the Internet. For good or bad, the song is ranked No. 55 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. "Louie Louie" has become the ultimate party track, and as it uses only three chords. Any musician can soon play the tune and improvise his or her own lyrics, squeaky-clean or suggestively or blantantly otherwise. 

Beauty is in the eye -- and the ear -- of the beholder.