The 1980s saw a resurgent interest in “Louie Louie” in Washington State, marked most notably by the infamous series of campaigns to replace “ Washington, My Home” as the state song (a story oft-repeated at Mariners games, a tradition almost as venerable as the song itself). The Kingsmen perform in 1964 Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Despite a schism over vocals and an FBI obscenity inquisition, the Kingsmen recording found its way to the top of the charts, remaining an international hit for the remainder of the decade. Local, and eventually national, media hotly debated whether the Raiders’ straight-laced sound and raunchy backing track or the Kindsmen’s murky, almost garbled performance would ultimately become the gold standard of the song. Two bands recorded versions of their own in April of ‘63: Oregonian outfit the Kingsmen and Boise band Paul Revere & the Raiders, each one drawing on an amalgam of the original Berry recording and the versions played in garages from Eugene to Bellingham. The song became an instant radio hit around the Sound and a set list staple for many of the most prominent local artists of the era (including Dave Lewis, the Wailers, the Frantics, and future star Jimi Hendrix).Īlmost a decade after its original composition, in 1963, “Louie Louie”’s most famous recording would emerge from a small Portland studio, but only after a great deal of intra-Northwest controversy. Louisianian Richard Berry wrote the song to the tune of the Cuban calypso-esque standard “ El Loco Cha Cha” in 1955, but it was his performance as an opener in the Seattle metro area around September 1957 that began its ascension to the legendary status it holds today. Claiming the world’s most recorded rock song, especially one of Afro-Cuban inspiration, as a piece of Pacific Northwest heritage seems iffy at first glance, but ask a member of an older generation and they’ll corroborate such a lofty assertion. And it’s quintessentially Northwest music. What’s more, “Louie Louie” is quintessentially Mariners. But “Louie Louie” lifted our spirits regardless, giving us a moment just about being silly together. A hype song feels inauthentic when a position player is about to pitch. Every year there are baseball games where a team is down 12-3 in the seventh. It wasn’t a Jock Jam, there to try to pump us up for a comeback or to keep the boot on the neck of an opponent being thrashed. There was no sponsor and no tie-in to a brand. It turned 60 seconds of the game into a family-friendly kegger. So too have they seen to sponsoring the boats in the hydro race and associating Terence Mann’s speech with a Chrysler. The capitalistic constraints (which are themselves a baseball tradition) have seen to that. We can’t keep a stadium, much less a stadium’s name. It breaks my heart to think that if I have a child, I couldn’t recreate that with them. But the one memory I have of baseball with my mom will always, always be dancing to “Louie Louie” at the Kingdome. This type of consensus is a rarity in these times.- Joe Veyera April 16, 2022įor myself (Zach), most of my baseball memories from childhood have my dad as a central figure. You could win seemingly any city-wide campaign you want to on the promise that "Louie Louie" continues to play after the seventh-inning stretch at T-Mobile Park.
Finding the hidden ball, the hydro races, Rick giving us our “happy totals.” But if asked to name a Mariners tradition, the average fan (after a sarcastic “losing”) would almost certainly point to “Louie Louie.” It’s iconic. We speak, of course, of the replacement of “Louie Louie” during the seventh-inning stretch with Macklemore’s “Can’t Hold Us.” The Mariners have some other traditions too, sure. So it’s devastating to discover that one of the only uniquely Mariners traditions has been broken. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. There’s a reason that the platonic ideal of (if far from the best of) baseball movies stages its crescendo on this speech:
It’s been passed down from parents to children for generations. You knew this post would start like this, but that’s because it’s true. Traditions are important, especially in baseball.
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