I’ve owned a bass guitar for many years and I only know how to play
three songs; I can play “Gigantic” by the Pixies, I can play “Walk on
the Wild Side” by Lou Reed, and I can play Lee Hazlewood’s “These Boots
are Made for Walkin'” — the Nancy Sinatra version. “Boots”
was the first song I learned, and I spent hours upon hours practicing the opening
sliding run. I rocked it.
“Boots” is a brush-off number of the nastiest kind. Sinatra calls out
the anonymous guy in no uncertain terms and reads off all of his
misdeeds as though she was reading a grocery list. (Hazlewood reportedly
told her to sing as if she were a 16-year-old girl dressing down a
40-year-old man.) She’s taking her boots, and is not just walking away
with them but is promising also to stomp on him a bit before she goes.
For 1966, those were some pretty strong and sexy words, and a crack team
of session musicians — including the great drummer Hal Blaine and
bassists Carol Kaye and Chuck Berghofer — give them extra menace.
There are probably at least one hundred versions of that song out
there. (The definition of travesty: Wikipedia has 489 words on
Nancy Sinatra’s version, while Jessica Simpson’s hackneyed cover somehow
warrants 845 words.) I know for a fact that I have at least two dozen
covers of "Boots" stomping around in my iTunes library right now,
attempted by everyone from Geri Halliwell to Government Issue, from the
Barcode Brothers to Barry Adamson. And you know something? I don't just play the Sinatra version; I can play
along with them all.
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