Hanky Panky (Tommy James and the Shondells song)

"Hanky Panky"
Single by The Shondells
from the album Hanky Panky
B-side "Thunderbolt"
Released 1964
Format Vinyl record (7")
Genre Garage rock
Length 2:59
Label Snap!, Roulette
Songwriter(s) Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich
Producer(s) Henry Glover
The Shondells singles chronology
"Judy"
(1962)		 "Hanky Panky"
(1964)		 "Hanky Panky (re-release)"
(1966)

"Judy"
(1962)		 "Hanky Panky"
(1964)		 "Hanky Panky (re-release)"
(1966)

"Hanky Panky" is a song written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich for their group, The Raindrops. A 1964 recording by The Shondells, later reissued in 1966 under the band's new, and more successful, incarnation of "Tommy James and the Shondells," is the best known version reaching #1 in the United States in 1966.

Song structure and meaning

Donald A. Guarisco at AllMusic[1] wrote:

The lyrics of this song convey the excitement of a hormonal lad driven mad by a girl who knows how to do the suggestive dance of the title, building themselves around the oft-repeated lyrical hook of "My baby does the hanky panky." The music is equally simple and infectious, building itself on simple verse and chorus melodies that bounce up and down in a pleasant, bouncy fashion. James' version is pure garage rock, a live-in-the-studio effort that layered low-slung guitar riffs over a shuffling stomp of a beat from the rhythm section. James topped it off with amusingly mush-mouthed vocals a la "Louie Louie" and an out-of-control guitar solo that is cheered on by the other band members.

In the Young People's Concert titled What Is a Mode? Leonard Bernstein explained that the song was composed in the Mixolydian mode.[2]

Composition and history

Barry and Greenwich authored the song in 1963. They were in the middle of a recording session for their group The Raindrops, and realized they needed a B-side to a single, "That Boy John". The duo then went into the hall and penned the song in 20 minutes. Barry and Greenwich weren't particularly pleased with the song and deemed it inferior to the rest of their work. "I was surprised when [Tommy James version] was released," Barry commented to Billboard's Fred Bronson, "As far as I was concerned it was a terrible song. In my mind it wasn't written to be a song, just a B-side." Hanky Panky versions: Summits (1963) (Harmon 1017/Rust 5072), Raindrops (November 1963), Tommy James & Shondells (February 1964).[3]

Another version has the song being written in a car at a lover’s lane, while "everyone else was making out, Jeff and I were making music."[4]

The song was recorded by "an obscure R&B girl group" The Summits in 1963, but failed to chart.[5]

Although only a B-side, "Hanky Panky" became popular with garage rock bands. James heard it being performed by one such group in a club in South Bend, Indiana. "I really only remembered a few lines from the song, so when we went to record it, I had to make up the rest of the song," he told Bronson. "I just pieced it back together from what I remembered."

James' version was recorded at a local radio station, WNIL in Niles, Michigan, and released on local Snap Records, selling well in the tri-state area of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. However, lacking national distribution, the single quickly disappeared. James moved on, breaking up The Shondells, and finishing high school.

In 1965, an unemployed James was contacted by Pittsburgh disc jockey "Mad Mike" Metrovich. Metrovich had begun playing The Shondells' version of "Hanky Panky", and the single had become popular in that area. James then decided to re-release the song, traveling to Pittsburgh where he hired the first decent local band he ran into, The Raconteurs, to be the new Shondells (the original members having declined to re-form).

After appearances on TV and in clubs in the city, James took a master of "Hanky Panky" to New York City, where he sold it to Roulette Records. "The amazing thing is we did not re-record the song," James told Bronson, "I don't think anybody can record a song that bad and make it sound good. It had to sound amateurish like that. I think if we'd fooled with it too much we'd have fouled it up." It was released promptly and took the top position of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in July 1966.

Bob Rivers parodied the song as "Newt Gingrich Does the Hanky Panky".[6]

Notes

  1. ↑ Guarisco, Donald. "Song Review: Hanky Panky". AllMusic. Retrieved August 30, 2006.
  2. ↑ Young People's Concert: What Is a Mode? (transcripts) – LeonardBernstein.com. Retrieved July 21, 2018
  3. ↑ On the 8 May 1982 and other editions of American Top 40, Casey Kasem claimed that Tommy James recorded the song in 1961.
  4. ↑ Greenwich and Berry, Do-Wah-Diddy: Words and Music by Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, CD, Ace Records Ltd., London, 2008, liner notes
  5. ↑ Greenwich and Berry, Do-Wah-Diddy: Words and Music by Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, CD, Ace Records Ltd., London, 2008, liner notes
  6. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-05-11. Retrieved 2011-05-11.

References

  • Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits . ISBN 0-8230-7677-6.
  • "BBC: The Official UK Charts Company". United Kingdom sales chart. Retrieved June 11, 2006.
  • "Billboard". Billboard Hot 100 airplay and sales charts. Retrieved June 11, 2006.
  • Haight, Debra (2009-11-22). "For Tommy James, it's been a long weird road". The Herald-Palladium. Retrieved 2009-11-24.
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