"Hanky Panky" is a song written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich for their group, The Raindrops. A 1964 recording by The Shondells, later reissued in 1966 under the band's new, and more successful, incarnation of "Tommy James and the Shondells," is the best known version, reaching #1 in the United States in 1966.
Barry and Greenwich authored the song in 1963. They were in the middle of a recording session for their group, The Raindrops, and realized they needed a B-side for their single, "That Boy John". The duo then went into the hall and penned the song in 20 minutes. Barry and Greenwich weren't particularly pleased with the song and deemed it inferior to the rest of their work. "I was surprised when was released," Barry commented to Billboard's Fred Bronson. "As far as I was concerned it was a terrible song. In my mind it wasn't written to be a song, just a B-side." Greenwich has a different recollection events, stating that the song was written in a car at a lover's lane. Greenwich claimed that while "everyone else was making out, Jeff and I were making music." The single "That Boy John"/"Hanky Panky" was released in November 1963. The song was also recorded by "an obscure R&B girl group", The Summits, in 1963, but failed to chart. Although only a B-side, "Hanky Panky" became popular with garage rock bands. James heard it being performed by one such group in a club in South Bend, Indiana. "I really only remembered a few lines from the song, so when we went to record it, I had to make up the rest of the song," he told Bronson. "I just pieced it back together from what I remembered." On the May 8, 1982 episodes of American Top 40, Casey Kasem claimed that Tommy James recorded the song in 1961. James' version was recorded at a local radio station, WNIL in Niles, Michigan, and released on local Snap Records in February 1964, selling well in the tri-state area of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. However, lacking national distribution, the single quickly disappeared. James moved on, breaking up The Shondells, and finishing high school. In 1965, an unemployed James was contacted by Pittsburgh disc jockey "Mad Mike" Metrovich. Metrovich had begun playing The Shondells' version of "Hanky Panky", and the single had become popular in that area. James then decided to re-release the song, traveling to Pittsburgh, where he hired the first decent local band he ran into, The Raconteurs, to be the new Shondells. After appearances on TV and in clubs in the city, James took a master of "Hanky Panky" to New York City, where he sold it to Roulette Records. "The amazing thing is we did not re-record the song," James told Bronson. "I don't think anybody can record a song that bad and make it sound good. It had to sound amateurish like that. I think if we'd fooled with it too much we'd have fouled it up." It was released promptly and took the top position of the U.S. BillboardHot 100 for two weeks in July 1966. In 2003, Bob Rivers parodied the song as "Newt Gingrich Does the Hanky Panky".
