Without doubt, the stand-out track on the Kill Bill film is Nancy Sinatra’s eerie reading of ‘Bang Bang’. That weird tremelo guitar and super sparse backing, leaving Nancy to emote every single word… it’s a striking and unusual piece of music.
But alas, it wasn’t originally Nancy’s. In fact the song originally belonged to Cher.
Written by Cher’s partner, Sonny Bono, the song isn’t some obscure b-side, but rather, it was Cher’s biggest solo hit of the ’60s, reaching no. 2 in the chart, selling over 3 million copies in the US alone!
Cher’s version is a lot busier than Nancy’s, featuring grand orchestrations that are almost Gypsy like. A world away from Nancy’s chilling version.
Sinatra’s cut can be heard on the ‘How Does That Grab You?’ album, which for fans of ’60s pop music, is well worth checking out.
Of course, it was Kill Bill which really put the song in people’s minds, which paved the way for the dodgy Audio Bullys re-edit which proved successful.
The song has been popular with artists over the years, with Stevie Wonder tackling it in ’66, Petula Clark again in ’66, Frank Sinatra in ’81 and incredibly popular in Italy where the song was covered by many artists.
Anyway, enough chin-stroking. Here’s the best three versions of the track, starting of course, with the original.
Cher ‘Bang Bang’
Nancy Sinatra ‘Bang Bang’
Stevie Wonder ‘Bang Bang’
Rob Dean says
As a cover version I’ve long associated Bang Bang with Terry Reid. He named an album after it. Most recently The Raconteurs have done a superb live version. It’s one of Sonny Bono’s greatest achievements, so I’d guess that a large proportion of muso types would know he wrote it.