NANCY SINATRA - “These Boots Were Made For Walking”
(#210, 19th February 1966)
Somewhere on my hard drive there’s a track which mashes this song into Girls Aloud’s “Sound Of The Underground”. Like a lot of bootlegs it works as an act of criticism as well as a song: “These Boots” is indeed the knowing mid-00s pop aesthetic, almost forty years ahead of schedule. Take one celebrity starlet and one cynical songwriter, add sass and venom and a lucky bag of tricks, twists and gaps in the arrangement, and release. The opening bassline is heels down a spiral staircase, the final horn kicks are a nervous rush to obey, but really what’s being fetishised here is the single. Like “Good Vibrations” nine months later, “Boots” feels conceived and crafted not as a record of an ideal performance, but as a pop event, something unforgettable that sounds only like itself.
The ingredients might just about be familiar - a cruel but funny showtune sensibility (“truthin’”!); the dangerous bassy glamour of Kim Fowley’s teen dramas; the Brit girls’ amused detachment - but they haven’t been combined like this before, and no shopping list can capture the impact of “Boots”. That’s mostly down to Nancy Sinatra, who hardly has to sing the song, just act it. The band, and producer Lee Hazlewood, are canny enough to make the record move, so it doesn’t just become an icy exercise in snark. But still, half of what I love about pop seems to spring from her curled-lip “you” or her single, world-ending “Hah.” So here’s (yet) another definition of a great record: one that you can’t listen to without wanting to live it. 10
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p^nk s on May 19th, 2005
in my dreams they all get 10
Rosie on May 19th, 2005
The tension’s been killing me - I thought you never would!
Tom on May 19th, 2005
(I’ve pretty much known for ages that the first 10 would be around 1966 cos there are so many amazing songs, but I wanted to let instinct tell me which record it would actually be.)
bza on May 19th, 2005
I definitely agree that this is a ten, but do you really think it is better than “Satisfaction”?
Anyway, good site, great idea, I’ll be a regular here, so hello.
Vicus Scurra on May 19th, 2005
And you were doing so well.
Nancy Pigging Sinatra.
I just hope this is a result of hallucinogens and not your real assessment.
Alan Connor on May 20th, 2005
Okay, fine. Not “Telstar” — but then it’s not my football, posts or garden. :)
Resurrection Watch: Covers include good ol’ Janis Ian and Barry Adamson & Anita Lane; bad ol’ Billy Ray Cyrus and Boy George and various randoms like The Fixx and Megadeth.
Oh, and let us never forget Heaven 17’s choice of vocalist for the Music Of Quality And Distinction BEF reworking?.
Films must be a gazillion, but include Full Metal Jacket, The Mexican, about a millisecond in Fargo, and of course (sigh) Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery — oh, and if you haven’t heard The Crazy Frog’s version… can I swap lives with you? Please?
? [Paula Yates]
Marcello on May 20th, 2005
Very far from a 10 in my book, alas; I hold this record responsible for inventing inverted commas pop, which on balance has done far more harm than good; in fact pretty much everything I detest about pop has its roots here. All I can hear in “These Boots Are Made For Walking” is a sneer and a spreadsheet.
Like Kane’s Xanadu, even if it’s the most obvious facade in the universe, I still want to believe in it (now there’s a thing - Citizen Kane, the progenitor of inverted commas cinema, and yet the meme works in cinema but not in pop).
Tom on May 20th, 2005
It was probably because I was thinking about ‘inverted commas pop’ and its implications that I responded so well to it, Marcello!
I do believe in the facade in this case: or rather, the song makes me want to assume the same facade, which isn’t quite the same thing as ‘believing’ it but is just as powerful. This is very obviously somebody sitting down and thinking, right, let’s make an amazing pop record - it had to be or Nancy’s ‘career’ would have gone down the dumper. I don’t think the obviousness of that lessens the, uh, use-value of the record.
Hello bza! Better than Satisfaction? Not always, no, but on the days I reviewed the two records, yes.
Marcello on May 20th, 2005
I’m not quite sure that the career of Frankie’s daughter with the laughing face would have been allowed to go down the dumper…this I think indicates the critical divergence between us; “Telstar,” for instance, was Joe Meek watching the news one night and thinking wouldn’t it be nice to write a song about that. Cynicism of any stripe I can’t identify with in pop, except maybe the Leonard Cohen variety.
That having been said, the less Hazlewood and Sinatra strove to make A Hit Record, the better records they made, I think (Sand, Velvet, et al).
“You Only Live Twice” is, mind you, immortal - either in the original lush John Barry-produced form or the fuzzed-up, harsher take on the single version (which Hazlewood produced).
Anonymous on May 20th, 2005
Well, Tom…..
I suppose Morrissey might agree with you–which doesn’t mean that all that many of us will.
This might well be your biggest controversy since–I dread to write the title–”King of the Road.” (Groan)
In my peculiar way I do appreciate that your rating system depends on how you feel on the day you write your critique. I daresay it’s probably true about most forms of criticism, even if we pretend otherwise. (For example, have I, a specialist in British Modernism, always and forever thought that *Ulysses* is the greatest novel of the 20th century? No! But polls of reputedly great literary minds almost always come to that conclusion.
I know I was b^tchy with you about Sandie Shaw’s “Long Live Love.” I know I said, with considerable irritation, that girls just aren’t taken seriously. Today I have reversed myself–this girl is being taken WAY too seriously. But if I were to rely on my feelings today, I’d give Sandie an 8 and Ms. Snotra a 2. Today, yesterday, tomorrow, forty years ago, forty years from now…..
Or maybe it’s because she’s Frank Sinatra’s daughter and I could never endure her father’s vocal mannerisms.
By the way, I once read that during the Branch Davidian siege, the US government forces played this recording full blast and constantly to drive cult members into surrendering. I would surrender just to make it stop. But then, if they had to hear this 24/7, I could even understand why some of them got violent and committed suicide.
It might be apocryphal, but I like to believe it’s true.
Doctor Mod
mark sinker on May 20th, 2005
This post has been removed by the author.
p^nk s on May 20th, 2005
oops sorry yes that wz me! it left my FULL NAKED NAME but not my comment - hence i actually deleted nothin!!
the comment i meant to leave wz:
“my boots” is also better than “ulysses”!1
but it seems less komikal now
Marcello on May 20th, 2005
Ulysses is not as good as that episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum where Sergeant Major Shutup has a go at La-Di-Da Gunner Graham for wasting time reading books “like that Useless by James Joyce.”
Lena on May 20th, 2005
I don’t think this merits a 10 - unless it’s a karaoke 10 or a camp classic 10 (here in Toronto there was an all-lesbian group called The Nancy Sinatras who did, yup, mostly Nancy covers). To me it’s a song Bridget Jones would do in a karaoke bar with her best friends cheering along, which is fine, for what it is.
“Good Vibrations” isn’t in the same league - this is a lot closer to The Monkees, I think, though oddly enough, I find it easier to take a manufactured group than a manufactured song.
Tom on May 20th, 2005
When the final list of 10s stands revealed, in 2010 or whenever, I suspect most will have a touch of the karaoke bar about them.
Marcello - agreed on “You Only Live Twice”, amazing record, I’m not sure I’ve been aware of two different versions and must track them down.
I’ve more to say about pop and cynicism but will try and save it for an entry sometime.
I think if her singles had kept on flopping Ms S’ career wd have been diverted discreetly away from pop.
Robin on May 22nd, 2005
The problem I have with giving this 10 is: what do you have left for “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore”?
Anonymous on May 24th, 2005
Maybe just a place to stick it !
Brian
Anonymous on May 25th, 2005
You could call it great camp, but for me “Boots” is so-so pop. Call it pop run through the machine, the same one that Britney uses (just a much older model).
Nice to see “Secret Love” up there. It’s one hell of an under-appreciated ballad.
Anthony on May 25th, 2005
i dont think its camp, i think its a really great, and complicated anthem of emncipation,
Mark Gamon on May 27th, 2005
Crikey. I go away for a week or so, and along comes a 10. Hurrah for Tom!!!
PS Please take no notice of Vicus Scurra. The poor lad means well but he clearly has the bass turned down on his stereo…
Anonymous on May 30th, 2005
Mmmm - I don’t see the problem with the image of boots walkin’ all over you at all. Even this though shouldn’t have elevated this record to a ten - it doesn’t sound well crafted but a bit tossed off if you’ll excuse the expression. You Only Live Twice is though, glorious.
Anonymous on June 7th, 2005
You are spot on about the knowing, inverted commas element to this.
One cover version that hasn’t been mentioned is Hazlewood’s own, also recorded in ‘66, which adds spoken commentary about the making of the record and the fact that it sold a million. (he doesn’t quite say “Suckers!” but comes close).
And yes, bothe the Nancy and Lee versions would get a 10 from me.
Jeff W
Lena on June 10th, 2005
I agree with you Anthony that it’s a song of emancipation (I mentioned it to my mom and she compared it to “I Am Woman”), but it’s still campy and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an early film/video of it - it’s so dramatic in a near-Vegas way.
(Of course a song can be both campy and be a song of emancipation.)
bza on June 15th, 2005
I just realized no one mentioned my favorite cover of this song: Crispin Glover on his lone record. Creepy…
Alan Connor on June 16th, 2005
Ooh, Resurrection Watch update:
Jessica Simpson & Willie Nelson
Mr. Snrub on July 2nd, 2005
Umm, isn’t it “These Boots ARE Made For Walking”?
Never thought this song was all that great. I’m more of a “Some Velvet Morning” kinda guy.
Joe Williams on September 22nd, 2005
I’m with you Tom, although I would have probably put a few 10s in before now as well ;-)
It has become campy over the years because we’ve come to associate this subject matter (girls on top, basically) with campiness. Just picking another couple of Number Ones, see also ‘I Will Survive’ or ‘Survivor’. All three, when sung by a woman, are strong statements of empowerment. When sung by a man they become ‘ooh, hark at you, you big queen’.
Alan Connor may be interested to note, for his Resurrection Watch, a cover version by Alan Connor, which you can download here:
http://www.alanconnor.co.uk
Alan Connor on March 12th, 2006
Alan Connor may be interested to note, for his Resurrection Watch, a cover version by Alan Connor, which you can download here:
Good Gravy!
I must make sure I’m Google’s #1 for that name!