Tommy James and the Shondells: Hanky Panky

Welcome back to Lyrics, Weakly.

For this week’s episode, we take you back to 1966. 1966 was a pretty decent year for music, no matter what genre you prefer—for a few examples of the great things that happened that year, consider this partial list: The Beatles continued their move from just another upbeat rhythm and blues band to something original with the release of the Revolver album, arguably their best ever; Simon and Garfunkel released the Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme albums; the Beach Boys released the Pet Sounds album; Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention released the Freak Out! album; Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass had four (yes, four!) albums in the Billboard top ten; the Buffalo Springfield, Cream, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were formed; the Metropolitan Opera House opened in New York City; the first Mostly Mozart Festival was held in New York City; and Charley Pride got his major label deal.

In the midst of this most excellent music year, Frank Sinatra had a few chart-toppers, including the biggest hit of the year, “Strangers in the Night”—and even someone (like myself) who’s not really into Frank Sinatra has to admit that that’s just a beautifully performed song.

And what was the song that pushed Ol’ Blue-Eyes from the top of the charts?

None other than “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James and the Shondells.

Yes, this was a year that gave us #1 songs like not only “Strangers in the Night” but “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration” by the Righteous Brothers, “Monday Monday” by the Mamas and the Papas, “We Can Work It Out” and “Paperback Writer” by the Beatles, “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful, “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by the Supremes, “Reach Out I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops, “Paint It, Black” by the Rolling Stones, “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge, “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel, “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” by Nancy Sinatra, “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys, and “Good Lovin’” by the Young Rascals.

And, um, “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James and the Shondells. Yes, this song hit #1. Apparently, Frank Sinatra singing love songs was too complicated, and America had to move down a couple notches on the complexity scale to this thing.

(By the way, there are a lot of links in that list of #1 songs, but they’re there to jog your memory if you don’t remember hearing any of them—and also to let you compare even the least tuneful of them, not that i’m calling out Nancy Sinatra specifically here, and hear how much better it is than Mr. James and his Shondells.)

So let’s go ahead and listen to Tommy James telling us about his baby.

My baby does the hanky panky

Yes, this is a thinly-veiled—okay, a pretty much completely non-veiled—sexual reference.

I actually tried to google “hanky panky” to see whether this was actually the name of a dance craze back in the 60s (i mean, there was one called the “frug”, so it’s entirely possible), and after excluding a whole huge bunch of search results due to this song and a brand of lingerie, i conclude that no, this isn’t even a double entendre—this is about as blatantly sexual as you’re gonna get on commercial radio in the 60s.

So, you know, props for keepin’ it real and all that.

Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky

Repeated for emphasis, apparently.

My baby does the hanky panky

Um, dude? We got it the first two times.

My baby does the hanky panky

No, make that the first three times.

Hey, my baby does the hanky panky

Now you’re just gloating.

My baby does the hanky panky

No, seriously—it’s getting old now. Stop it.

Yeah, yeah, my baby does the hanky panky

Please just make it stop. Is that too much to ask?

Hey, my baby does the hanky panky

Yes. Yes, it was.

My baby does the hanky panky

Mr. James, i hate you.

Hey, my baby does the hanky panky

[vaguely coherent angry mumbling]

I saw her walkin’ on down the line

What’s that? New lyrics? Good—i was about to do something i was probably going to regret later.

And they’re even coherent—looks like we’re building up to a story here.

Yeah, you know I saw her for the very first time
A pretty little girl standin’ all alone

Ah! A story about young love! The beauty of that innocent first meeting and such.

“Hey pretty baby, can I take you home?”

Or maybe not.

You know, this strikes me as a bit forward for a first meeting. But then again, as we know by now, this girl does the hanky panky. Maybe offering a proposition right at the outset is Mr. James’s method of finding out whether she’ll put out right from the start—kind of a “tell me now before i spend twenty dollars on drinks” kind of thing. I suppose we ought to give Mr. James credit for being up-front with his desires.

Or maybe this is how he starts out because she’s actually a very specific sort of pretty little girl. Either way it works for him, i suppose.

I never saw her, never really saw her

And so now our two lovers head home together, and…

Huh?

The only way this makes sense is if Mr. James is blind (which he isn’t, i checked). No, wait, i take that back. It doesn’t make sense even then, after saying I saw her walking on down the line earlier.

This is making my head hurt—not a good move for a little pop song.

My baby does the hanky panky

And now my head hurts worse.

Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky

Seriously, dude, stop it. Now.

But, of course, Mr. James doesn’t stop it.

And in the interest of your continued sanity, i’ll skip the three repetitions of this line that immediately follow. For those of you keeping score at home, though, those additional three repetitions mean that Mr. James has seen fit to tell us fifteen times that the woman he propositioned is sexually active.

I’m starting to wonder about that, by the way—Mr. James is starting to sound like there’s a bit more talk than action going on in his bedroom, you know?

Anyway, now we get to more storyline.

I saw her walkin’ on down the line

Oh, cool—it looks like we’re going to get a bit more detail about how he met her. That’s good—maybe we’ll finally find out what was going on with the whole I saw her vs. I never saw her paradox.

Yeah, you know I saw her for the very first time

Oh, dear. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

A pretty little girl standin’ all alone
“Hey pretty baby, can I take you home?”
I never saw her, never really saw her

Grrr.

You mean it’s not enough to repeat the same six words over and over and over, you even have to repeat the only semblance of storyline word-for-word?

And that means…Oh, please, for the love of all that is holy, no.

Hey, my baby does the hanky panky
Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
Yeah, my baby does the hanky panky
Hey, my baby does the hanky panky

Yes.

Nine more times, no less.

Yes, twenty-four times we had to be told that Mr. James is getting busy with his girlfriend. Dude and dudette, just get a room and leave the rest of us alone, okay?

Anyway, sorry to subject all of you to a song this repetitive. As a consolation prize for having made it through all this, i offer you this amazing video—it starts out with one of the most amazingly psychedelic lyrics i’ve ever heard from before the psychedelic rock era, and evolves into an even more psychedelic performance. Seriously, don’t give up on it after the first minute or so, and take the opportunity to learn more about the sexual fetishes that existed in 1944 than you ever thought existed—they had more going on than you ever dreamed, apparently. You’ll never think of your grandparents and great-grandparents the same way.