New Members Of TMV’s Get A Life Club: Officials And Parents Obsessing Over Louie Louie

NOTE TO READERS: To be inducted into TMV’s prestigious Get A Life Club a person or organization must display silliness, pomposity or PC behavior that goes beyond the realm of normal rational beings. The story below marks the entrance of some new members into this exclusive club.


See UPDATE at bottom of this post.


Decency is indeed a valid and “appropriate” (favorite school word) issue, particularly at hormone-raging middle schools — but don’t you think this school administrator perhaps has a bit too much time on her hands?

A pop culture controversy that has simmered for decades came to a head when a middle school marching band was told not to perform “Louie Louie.”

Benton Harbor Superintendent Paula Dawning cited the song’s allegedly raunchy lyrics in ordering the McCord Middle School band not to perform it in Saturday’s Grand Floral Parade, held as part of the Blossomtime Festival.

In a letter sent home with McCord students, Dawning said “Louie Louie” was not appropriate for Benton Harbor students to play while representing the district — even though the marching band wasn’t going to sing it.

How can it be inappropriate when most people can’t understand what the original singer was saying and the band was not going to sing it anyhow?



Trying to figure out the words from the old recording is like trying to understand Bob Dylan sing or Dennis Kucinich talk. More:

Band members and parents complained to the Board of Education at its Tuesday meeting that it was too late to learn another song, The Herald-Palladium of St. Joseph reported…Dawning said that if a majority of parents supports their children playing the song, she will reconsider her decision.

“It was not that I knew at the beginning and said nothing,” Dawning said. “I normally count on the staff to make reliable decisions. I found out because a parent called, concerned about the song being played.”

So one parent complained and the song was off – based on that. Hey kids at that school: get a parent to call up and complain about the school food and the district will bring in McDonald’s or Krispy Kreme to cater…

Meanwhile, the news story also notes this about the song:

The best-known, most notorious version was a hit in 1963 for the Kingsmen; the FBI spent two years investigating the lyrics before declaring they not only were not obscene but also were “unintelligible at any speed.”

Get the picture?

• In the past, the FBI felt the lyrics of this song were vital to a safe America, so they spent two years investigating the lyrics. The amount of money spent on that investigation could have bought several designer gowns for J. Edgar Hoover.
• A parent felt it was a dirty lyric, so he/she/it called the school to make sure they didn’t play the song which wasn’t going to be sung.
• The School Superintendent, who we are sure (this is NOT sarcasm because we know many educators) is an extremely hard-working and busy person who cares about her kids, banned a song based on the complaint of one parent — without researching the song on the Internet. It took TMV about two seconds to do a search and find THIS PAGE which contains purportedly dirty lyrics to the song…and then then other less offensive versions of the lyrics. THIS WEBSITE flatly declares the lyrics unoffensive.

For all of their time and energy spent into creating a stink over lyrics most people can’t understand we induct the 1950s/1960s FBI agents, the parent who complained and the diligent superintendent into our highly coveted Get A Life Club.

In fact, we’ll offer them a chair. Well, it’s not big enough. So we’ll give them a sofa.



IMPORTANT UPDATE: This just in: the band can play the song:

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. (AP) — “Louie Louie,” the center of a decades-long pop culture controversy, is back on a middle school band’s program for a weekend parade…



(The school superintendent) reversed herself Thursday after consulting with parents.



“Based on them granting permission and the multiple versions of the song, the students will march in the parade and play “Louie Louie,” she said in a news release.

SO based on her action, Benton Harbor Superintendent Paula Dawning’s membership in the Get A Life Club has been revoked. She’s too normal to be a member.



But the parent who called in, and the FBI agents, stay in due to their exceptional qualifications for membership.