Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Are Made For Walkin’

Video: Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ (Official Music Video)
Director/Choreographer: Robert Sidney
Additional Editing: Chelsea Christer

The song was written by Lee Hazlewood; it was inspired by a line spoken by Frank Sinatra in the comedy-western film 4 for Texas (1963): “They tell me them boots ain’t built for walkin’.”

Originally released in 1966, the enduringly iconic, million-selling album not only catapulted the career of singer, actress, activist, and cultural icon, Nancy Sinatra, it contained within its grooves an enduring anthem of empowerment that continues to resonate with new audiences today with no signs of slowing down.

Boots marks Sinatra’s transformation from “Nancy nice lady,” as she says, to a fully-formed and self-assured figure of empowerment both in appearance and in performance, making her forever synonymous with the album’s titular subject in the process. A top 5 album at the time of its release, Sinatra scored a No.1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic with “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” which earned three GRAMMY® nominations and sold over a million copies of the single. The album marked her first full-length release with writer, producer, and collaborator, Lee Hazlewood, which features a mixture of Hazlewood-penned tunes and selections from heavyweights The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and more. The successful collage of 60s material hangs beautifully together with support from the famed Los Angeles session musicians, The Wrecking Crew, who set the stage for Nancy’s vocals with their raw, jangly, exuberance and cohesion. Tying it all together is arranger and longtime collaborator Billy Strange, whose innovative arrangements provided the perfect sound to help Nancy capture the attention of the world. Included in the forthcoming reissue are all tracks from the original album, plus two bonus tracks, “The City Never Sleeps At Night” and the previously unreleased “For Some.” All tracks have been newly remastered from the original analog tapes by GRAMMY®–nominated engineer, John Baldwin.

The song was used by Stanley Kubrick for a scene in his 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, where a South Vietnamese prostitute in a miniskirt propositions a couple of American GIs.
A part of the song was sung by Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers.
The song was featured in the 1997 film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
The song was featured in the 2018 film Ocean’s 8.

Released on February 22, “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” climbed to the summit of the pop chart in a mere four days, and it remains Nancy’s most recognizable song, inspiring a range of covers from Jessica Simpson to Megadeth.

The Wrecking Crew, a group of noted Los Angeles session musicians, served as Nancy’s backing band, with member Chuck Berghofer adding the groovy opening bass line.

Thanks to a company called Color-Sonics, a fashionable video was made for this song showing Nancy with a troupe of dancers performing this song in boots, sweaters, and little else. Color-Sonics made video jukeboxes for bars; you could pop a few quarters into the machine and a film reel would play. Knowing their audience, they commissioned the “Boots” video, which was directed by Robert Sidney, a choreographer who worked on the movies Where the Boys Are and Valley of the Dolls.

“These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” – Single by Nancy Sinatra from the album Boots
Released December 16, 1965
Recorded November 19, 1965
Songwriter Lee Hazlewood
Charted No.1 US, No.1 UK, No.1 Australia, No.1 Argentina, No. 1 Denmark, No.1 Ireland, No.1 New Zealand, No.3 Italy, No.2 West Germany.