Louie, Louie

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Number6
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Louie, Louie

Post by Number6 »

Louie Louie, the classic 1963 rock song by The Kingsmen has a secret. During the recording session, the drummer yelled "Fuck" and it can be hears (barely) at the 54 second mark. I've heard the song hundreds of times and until the story appeared in Snopes I never heard it in the song. See if you can hear it, too.


Louie Louie

Edited to add Snopes link,
Snopes
Last edited by Number6 on Mon Nov 22, 2021 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Drak
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Re: Louie, Louie

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Number6 wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 1:35 pm Louie Louie, the classic 1963 rock song by The Kingsmen has a secret. During the recording session, the drummer yelled "Fuck" and it can be hears (barely) at the 54 second mark. I've heard the song hundreds of times and until the story appeared in Snopes I never heard it in the song. See if you can hear it, too.


Louie Louie
I can hear someone in the back yell something, but it's not totally audible what he's yelling.
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Libertas
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Re: Louie, Louie

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Drak wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 2:08 pm I can hear someone in the back yell something, but it's not totally audible what he's yelling.
Yeah, he might as well be yelling DUMPTRUCK or TRUMP IS A FUCK

:lol: but yeah I can hear it...that was a risky thing to do back then.
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Number6
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Re: Louie, Louie

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Libertas wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 2:30 pm Yeah, he might as well be yelling DUMPTRUCK or TRUMP IS A FUCK

:lol: but yeah I can hear it...that was a risky thing to do back then.
I had heard, and as the Snopes article said, the FBI looked at it and I'm surprised they didn't hear it. Or, if they did, they didn't say or do anything about it.
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Drak
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Re: Louie, Louie

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The recording is pretty low quality compared to stuff that came later and with very few tracks. Probably recorded in mono originally, and with all players at once. The drummer’s voice picked up by an overhead drum mic or someone else’s mic. I have a treated studio with a good set of monitors. While I can hear it, it’s not really clear what’s is yelled. But with more hi fi material it’s sometimes interesting and amazing what you can’t normally hear through standard gear.
"Some of those that work forces,
Are the same that burn crosses"

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Re: Louie, Louie

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Agreed. The original recording that made the Louie, Louie hit and sold all the records has "One-Take Special" written all over it. Sometimes when those old AM-station-market singles are really scrutinized on movie sound editing studio grade equipment with full capability to go over and over sound looking for problems, you can hear stuff that the people just lived with, if they ever heard it at all. Bad edits, subway trains, you name it. I never did this with Louie Louie when I had the chance, though. Too bad.

I've always been quite sure that he yelled "Fuck" but I can't give any evidence either way.
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Number6
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Re: Louie, Louie

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Drak wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 3:16 pm The recording is pretty low quality compared to stuff that came later and with very few tracks. Probably recorded in mono originally, and with all players at once. The drummer’s voice picked up by an overhead drum mic or someone else’s mic. I have a treated studio with a good set of monitors. While I can hear it, it’s not really clear what’s is yelled. But with more hi fi material it’s sometimes interesting and amazing what you can’t normally hear through standard gear.
Most music is listened to casually, that is, we don't concentrate on the words but on the music and how the singing harmonizes with the music which is why many of the song lyrics we think we are singing correctly are actually wrong. Now, Louie Louie lyrics are hard to understand to begin with so listening for one word in the background is difficult unless you know when it's going to happen. I've listened to that segment a couple of times and it does sound like "Fuck" but that may just be because subliminally in my mind.
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Re: Louie, Louie

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Right. It sure sounds like "Fuck," but yes, I would imagine that's what I want to hear. It rings right out, but still there's a lot of other stuff going on, and it gets subjective without getting the drummer back in and having him yell "Fuck" offmike, then trying to isolate the relevant clip from the single and comparing spectrograms. I'd rather just hear it that way and chuckle.
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Re: Louie, Louie

Post by sam lefthand »

I can't hear well enough to tell. Too many years in machine rooms filled with multi thousand horse power appliances.

:|

The loudest thing on Earth is a flame. A 15,000 horse power boiler flame shakes and shudders the very Earth beneath ones feet.

Steam crackling from water in boiler tubes is the second loudest thing on Earth.

I switched from steam to refrigeration to get out of the noise. It's a wonder I can hear at all.
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Re: Louie, Louie

Post by ZoWie »

The Saturn booster used in the Apollo program was louder. That thing would register on seismographs in Boston. I think NASA measured it at 204 dB though I don't remember what the zero reference was.

Of course that too is a flame, since it's basically oxidation of hydrogen.

Those boilers used in the bigger power stations are downright primal sounding.
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Re: Louie, Louie

Post by sam lefthand »

ZoWie wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 12:15 am The Saturn booster used in the Apollo program was louder. That thing would register on seismographs in Boston. I think NASA measured it at 204 dB though I don't remember what the zero reference was.

Of course that too is a flame, since it's basically oxidation of hydrogen.

Those boilers used in the bigger power stations are downright primal sounding.
Yes, the Apollo booster was a very powerful flame. It's difficult to convert to horsepower because it only ran for only seconds and used pure oxygen instead of atmospheric air burning for hours. One cannot take the measured thrust of the engines and directly convert that to horsepower units.

With boilers we estimate the horsepower of an oil flame by figuring out the number of gallons of fuel oil they would burn in 24 hours. A burner that burns one gallon of oil an hour produces about 24 horsepower.

The upper stages used different fuels, however the booster stage combined pure oxygen and fuel oil, so I can kind of work it out.

My somewhat calculated (guess) would be that the Apollo booster would be around about an 80 million horsepower flame. I'm estimating that the pure oxygen would magnify the basic fuel consumption with atmospheric oxygen from being about 20 million horse power, up to it being about 80 million horsepower when pure oxygen is used.
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Re: Louie, Louie

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sam lefthand wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 10:19 pm I can't hear well enough to tell. Too many years in machine rooms filled with multi thousand horse power appliances.

:|

The loudest thing on Earth is a flame. A 15,000 horse power boiler flame shakes and shudders the very Earth beneath ones feet.

Steam crackling from water in boiler tubes is the second loudest thing on Earth.

I switched from steam to refrigeration to get out of the noise. It's a wonder I can hear at all.
Loudest thing I ever heard was walking next to the furnace at GM's Central Foundry in Defiance, OH. I have nothing to compare it with.
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Re: Louie, Louie

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The Saturn, space shuttle, and similar engines based on the original F-1 design use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. They're rated in pounds of thrust. A single engine creates somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million pounds of thrust. Expelling this kind of gas all at once displaces air, which after all is what creates any sound. I think the next generation lunar boosters under design at NASA are also from this design.

The really historic noises are from volcanic explosions, which can send pressure waves circulating through the entire atmosphere for hours or days afterwards.

Most of the commercial providers use clusters of engines from an old Russian design. These use liquid oxygen to burn military rocket propulsion fuel, which I believe is kerosene based. Regardless of its exact composition, its raw material comes from dirty, greasy wells in unfriendly countries or ultra-reactionary parts of this one.
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Re: Louie, Louie

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I worked around rivet guns in aircraft factories which is loud enough. I was one of those who wore ear protection at all times. Usually plugs AND muffs.

Also wore plugs at rock concerts. I value my hearing. Even took them with me to Blue Man Group last night, but they weren't needed.
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Re: Louie, Louie

Post by sam lefthand »

ZoWie wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 12:43 pm The Saturn, space shuttle, and similar engines based on the original F-1 design use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. They're rated in pounds of thrust. A single engine creates somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million pounds of thrust. Expelling this kind of gas all at once displaces air, which after all is what creates any sound. I think the next generation lunar boosters under design at NASA are also from this design.

The really historic noises are from volcanic explosions, which can send pressure waves circulating through the entire atmosphere for hours or days afterwards.

Most of the commercial providers use clusters of engines from an old Russian design. These use liquid oxygen to burn military rocket propulsion fuel, which I believe is kerosene based. Regardless of its exact composition, its raw material comes from dirty, greasy wells in unfriendly countries or ultra-reactionary parts of this one.
You're mistaken about the first stage F-1 engine fuel, it's a highly refined kerosene, in other words basically it is fuel oil. They did not use liquid hydrogen on that first stage. This first stage rocket fuel is called Rocket Petroleum-1 or RP-1.

Here's a Wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP-1

"RP-1 is a fuel in the first-stage boosters of the Soyuz, Zenit, Delta I-III, Atlas, Falcon, Antares, and Tronador II rockets. It also powered the first stages of the Energia, Titan I, Saturn I and IB, and Saturn V."
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Re: Louie, Louie

Post by sam lefthand »

bird wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 12:26 pm Loudest thing I ever heard was walking next to the furnace at GM's Central Foundry in Defiance, OH. I have nothing to compare it with.
That would have been comparable to the burners I was working on. It certainly would have been in the multi thousand horsepower range.

:)

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Re: Louie, Louie

Post by ZoWie »

OK, I knew about RP-1 but was mistaken on the Saturn booster. Thanks.
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Re: Louie, Louie

Post by sam lefthand »

ZoWie wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 4:55 pm OK, I knew about RP-1 but was mistaken on the Saturn booster. Thanks.
You're Welcome. I would think most folks think it's liquid Hydrogen and liquid Oxygen that they used.

I knew otherwise because in the 60's during the moon shots it was our Farmland Industries refinery who had a NASA contract for refining that fuel. It was a matter of socialist pride amoung us kids that "our" fine oil refinery was making some of that rocket fuel they used.

:)

I remember there being Farmland rocket fuel stickers to go on those 300 and 500 gallon tanks farmers have on stands to refuel their tractors.
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