How Frank Sinatra Inspired His Daughter Nancy Sinatra’s Biggest Hit

February 26, 2025 11:06 am

On this day (February 26) in 1966, Nancy Sinatra scored her first No. 1 single with “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” The song went to No. 1 in several countries and helped establish Sinatra as a star. While her father, Frank Sinatra, didn’t have a hand in the promotion of the single, he inspired songwriter Lee Hazelwood to write it years before its release.

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Sinatra had tried and failed to find a hit for years. She released her debut single “Cuff Links and a Tie Clip” in 1961 and it failed to chart on either the country or all-genre survey. The same was true for her next ten releases. Then, she found moderate success with “So Long Babe” in 1965. The song broke into the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 86 on the all-genre chart. Later that year, she released “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” and landed her first No. 1.

The song put Sinatra in the spotlight and was the biggest hit of her career. It also bolstered the sales of her 1966 debut album Boots which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart.

How Frank Sinatra Inspired Nancy Sinatra’s Biggest Hit

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin starred in the 1963 comedy western film 4 for Texas. In the film, Sinatra’s character, Zack Thomas, says the line “The tell me them boots ain’t built for walkin’.” That line reportedly inspired Lee Hazlewood to pen what would become Nancy Sinatra’s biggest career hit.

Hazelwood originally planned to record the song but never got around to doing so. “It was a party song I had written two or three years before that. It was a joke to begin with,” he said of the hit. “I had written a beautiful song for her, ‘The City Never Sleeps at Night,’ and she wondered if it would sell. I replied, ‘Three times more than ‘So Long Babe,’ and that did 60,000. We’re building up your career,’” he added. At the last minute, he decided to put “The City Never Sleeps at Night” on the B-side and feature “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” on the A-side.

Sinatra would come to regret her biggest hit. “The image created by ‘Boots’ isn’t the real me. ‘Boots’ was hard and I’m as soft as they come,” she said.

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