The señor has been listening to the original version of “Louie Louie”, not The Kingsmen’s famous mumbler, but the one written and sung by Richard Berry. He points out the tender phrasing, the quasi-Jamaican lilt, the simple happy love story it evokes.
Edit: embedding is disabled on the Berry video: go here to see it.
I have been inspired by this to start a small creative project: to take the lyrics’ happy heart and rewrite it in various ways and forms, to see what I come up with. Whether kitsch or art remains to be seen, but here is my first simple translation, from Jamaican-style speech into standard-English verse. I think the original is better–that continuous present tense gives it emotional immediacy that dilutes, I think, in standard tenses–but I’m hopeful that further delving might throw up something new.
The Original
Louie, Louie, oh, oh, me gotta go
Louie, Louie, oh, oh, me gotta goFine little girl, she waits for me
Me catch the ship for cross the sea
Me sail the ship all alone
Me never think me make it homeLouie, Louie …
Three nights and days me sail the sea
Me think of girl constantly
On the ship I dream she there
Me smell the rose in her hairLouie, Louie …
Me see Jamaica moon above
It won’t be long, me see me love
I take her in my arms and then
Me tell her I never leave againLouie, Louie …
Verse Translation
Louie, Louie, oh, I’ve got to go
Louie, Louie, oh, I’ve got to goA fine little girl, she waits for me
Though I caught a ship to cross the sea
I sailed on that ship, all alone
I thought I’d never make it homeThree nights and days I sailed the sea
I thought of my girl constantly
On the ship I dreamed her there
I smelled the rose that’s in her hairWhen I see the Jamaica moon above
It won’t be long till I see my love
I’ll take her in my arms, and then
I’ll tell her I’ll never leave againLouie, Louie, oh, I’ve got to go
Louie, Louie, oh, I’ve got to go
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The “English” version reminds me of an episode of “A Different World” (Denise Crosby goes to college!) where someone was auditioning for a singing group and pronounced “gonna” as a crisp “going to”. It was done for laughs, but I like that take on things. It sounds far more serious, more thought out.
Curiously, Stuff White People Like today features the crisping-up of language you describe
What I’d like to be able to do in tinkering with these words is get inside the sentiment a little bit more. The young man at sea for just a few days, thinking so much of his new girlfriend that he could smell her floral hair piece over and above all the salty sea smells; that’s a big love.