These Boots Are Made For Walking

 

These Boots Are Made For Walking 

 

The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits says “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” was a huge hit for Nancy Sinatra. The tune topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week in 1966, becoming Sinatra’s first and only solo No. 1 single in the United States.  So much played on radio and TV and at so many places in 1966, but also in expected places like Waco, Texas in 1993 as a part of the FBI playlist trying to disturb David Koresh and his disciples [1] or even in the eighties at the Roxy, a raunchy peep show theater at the edge of Eighth Avenue in New York City or at many of S/M venues. [note 2]

note 1 : David Thibodeau was a follower of David Koresh who survived the Waco siege. In his 1999 book Waco: A Survivor’s Story, Thibodeau discussed how the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives treated the Branch Davidians.

“The cacophony of speeding trains and hovering helicopters alternates with amplified recordings of Christmas carols, Islamic prayer calls, Buddhist chants, and repeated renderings of whiny Alice Cooper and Nancy Sinatra’s pounding, clunky lyric, ‘These Boots Were Made for Walkin’,” he said.
https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/alice-cooper-nancy-sinatra-songs-got-played-waco-siege.html/

note 2 : according to the Williams fields notes, quoted by Terry Williams,a professor in the Department of Sociology at the New School for Social Research. in his book The Soft City (Sex for Business and Pleasure in New York City). (NB: how come these academics have always a good alibi?)

"I offer my notes on the peep-show industry from the 1980s to reveal how these
particular venues have changed since then.    Something that has emerged is how
the main action in these spaces engages some kind of physical, sensual stimulation, one derived from some aspect of the scene itself: the smell of leather, semen, perfumes, cigarette smoke, powders, body odor. Other sources of stimulation include body motion and touch, taste, and sound. The music is often raunchy, ribald, and risqué. A song heard at many of the S/M venues I encountered was Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”.