well it would be a bit of an untruth to say I fell for this song back in the sixties when I was all cool and groovy and iconic. But no. At the time I thought it was just a novelty song. It took the year 1977 and going to see the band The Boys next Door play as often as I could for me to love this song. I first heard of the Boys Next Door through Bruce Mine who the first time I went over to his place told me about the different punk bands already in Melbourne. But the roughest and toughest and the ones who meant it were The Boys Next Door. When I got to see them a few weeks later at a scout hall in Malvern I think I was knocked out by just how good they were. With a bunch of covers and a few of their own songs and a small crowd of punks and bystanders they just kicked down the doors. The next day my girlfriend was cutting my hair.
The band was all charisma. Especially Nick Cave. They did versions of I'm Eighteen, Andy Warhol (that was killer version of the Bowie song) and Boots. And they really kicked it with this one. The song just kept building up and up to a climax which doesn't appear on the original. Unfortunately it didn't quite work on their recorded version either. it came across, well, like a novelty song.
Nancy Sinatra's version still holds up though. And was a staple of the Rubber Soul night club. And the video once seen is not forgotten.
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