| "Johnny Got a Boom Boom" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single byImelda May | ||||
| from the albumLove Tattoo | ||||
| B-side | "Why Don't You Do Right?" | |||
| Released | 26 January 2009 | |||
| Recorded | 2008 at Embassy Studios inBasingstoke, United Kingdom | |||
| Genre | Rockabilly | |||
| Length | 3:01 | |||
| Label | Ambassador (Universal Music Ireland) | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Imelda May | |||
| Producer(s) | Imelda May | |||
| Imelda May singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Johnny Got a Boom Boom" is the debutsingle by Irishrockabilly musicianImelda May. Written solely by May, the song was released on 26 January 2009 on Ambassador Records, a sub-label ofUniversal Music Ireland, and is from her second studio album,Love Tattoo. The song gained significant popularity in Ireland and the United Kingdom upon its release and launched May into mainstream success after her performance of the song onLater... with Jools Holland on 23 September 2008.[1] The song is also featured on the 2010 comedy-action movieWild Target.
The song is known to have been written by May early in her professional career after the release of her debut studio albumNo Turning Back. During an interview withGay Byrne on theRTÉ music programmeFor One Night Only' in 2011, May described the origin of the song, citing "boredom" as the reason for its writing.
"I was in another band and I was writing all my own stuff and I was itching to my own stuff. There was a soundcheck that was just going on and on and on... and my heart just wasn't in what I was doing anymore. My creativity was going overtime and during soundcheck, the double bass was doing it and I just started [writing it]. And there's a little nod toJohn Lee Hooker and "Boom Boom Boom" in there as well."[2]
The song was recorded during theLove Tattoo sessions at Embassy Studios, a sixteen-track analogue recording studio in a converted cow shed, nearBasingstoke,United Kingdom. A remixed version of the song, mixed by Andy Bradfield, appears as a bonus track on May's second studio albumMayhem, released in September 2010.[3]
Though released as a single in January 2009, "Johnny Got a Boom Boom" saw its initial release through the promotionalmusic video which was released in November 2008.
The song was performed during most of May's television appearances in promotion forLove Tattoo, including the2009 Meteor Awards,[4]Later... with Jools Holland,Loose Women,[5] andThe Late Late Show.[6]
Though popular amongst May's fans and critics, the single failed to chart in either Ireland or the United Kingdom.
Filmed on location inDublin, the promotional music video for "Johnny Got a Boom Boom" is compiled of a dubbed live performance of the song in a small venue and clips of May and her band alongside the docks in the city. The video opens and closes with May doing hermake-up in a mirror and her case resting on a copy ofErnest Hemingway'sA Farewell to Arms. The music video uses an alternate mix of the song, which is also roughly twenty-one seconds shorter, to accompany the live performance clips.
All songs written byImelda May.
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