These Boots Are Made For Walkin'

Nancy is Frank Sinatra's daughter. She is best known for this song, but is far from a one-hit-wonder: she charted 10 times on the US Top 40 from 1966-1968, with six solo hits, three duets with Lee Hazlewood and one with her dad - the #1 "Somethin' Stupid." She also appeared in several movies, including Speedway with Elvis Presley.

Nancy was on the same record label as her famous father, but they were going to drop her because her first few singles flopped. Things changed when they teamed her with producer Lee Hazlewood, who wrote this for her and had her lower her delivery. The first attempt was "So Long Babe," which was a minor hit and the second was "These Boots are Made For Walkin'." Nancy regretted the song, saying in 1971, "The image created by 'Boots' isn't the real me. 'Boots' was hard and I'm as soft as they come." But then Lee had written the song for himself: "It was a party song I had written two or three years before that. It was a joke to begin with. I had written a beautiful song for her, 'The City Never Sleeps At Night,' and she wondered if it would sell. I replied, 'Three times more than 'So Long Babe,' and that did 60,000. We're building up your career.' I changed my mind and put it on the back of 'Boots' and that sold 6 million."

Lee Hazlewood said of this song: "When 'Boots' was #1 in half the countries in the world, Nancy came over to my house, and she was crying. She said, 'They didn't pick up on my option at Reprise and they said I owed them $12,000.' I said, 'You're kidding, we've got the biggest record in the world.' I rang my lawyer in New York and I rang Nancy the next day and said, 'How would you like $1 million? I've got three labels that are offering that for you right now and I can get something pretty good for myself as well.' She talked to her father and he said she could write her own contract with Reprise - after all she was selling more records than him at the time." (Quotes from 1000 UK #1 Hits.)