Showing posts with label The Troggs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Troggs. Show all posts

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon"

Two days ago, I listened to Chuck Berry's The Great Twenty-Eight.  While listening to it, I noticed some similarities between "Havana Moon" and "Louie, Louie," which has been done by many artists (most famously the Kingsmen).  I just listened to the version by Paul Revere & the Raiders, and I decided to finally write something about these connections, but in researching the songs, I've gotten a bit confused by the chronology.

According to the Wikipedia article for "Louie, Louie," Richard Berry who wrote the song "cited Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon" and his exposure to Latin American music for the song's speech pattern and references to Jamaica."  It also says that he wrote it in 1955.  The liner notes for The Great Twenty-Eight list the recording date for "Havana Moon" as October 1956.  The only way I can think of that these data can be reconciled is if Chuck Berry had performed "Havana Moon" on tours for a few years before he recorded it.  Otherwise, Richard Berry is listing as an influence a song that wouldn't have been written at the time he wrote "Louie, Louie."

In any case, there are similarities between the songs.  Paul Revere & the Raiders' version is a bit scant as far as lyrics go, and it's the only "complete" version I have, so this won't be exhaustive.  Lyrically, both songs employ a type of pidgin English, often substituting me for I.  "Louie, Louie" contains the lines, "Me gotta go" and "Me find little girl" (although I do have a version by the Troggs, done in a medley, in which the line is just "a fine little girl").  Chuck Berry's song carries this syntax throughout.  For example, here's the first verse:
Me all alone with jug of rum
Me stand and wait for boat to come
Is long the night, is quiet the dock
The boat she late since 12 o'clock
Both songs deal with trying to start a romance and talk about sailing, and I think they also mention rum.  Neither version I have contains a mention of rum, but from what I remember of hearing the Kingsmen's version on the radio, it's in there.