The Blues Brothers movie from 1980 is one of my favourite movies, not least for its stellar list of iconic musical guests – Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, James Brown, and Ray Charles amongst them. And, of course, blues great John Lee Hooker, whose appearance qualifies as more of a cameo than a performance.

With a legendary “boom, boom, boom boom” and “haw, haw, haw haw” (the latter now a part of the blue-rock lexicon – mimicked, for example at the start of ZZ Top’s “La Grange”), Hooker, if you recall, was the street performer at the famous Maxwell Street Market in Chicago just before Jake and Elwood entered the Soul Food Café where Franklin would soon break out in “Think.”

The song “Boom Boom” was a hit for Hooker in 1961, and he performed it live in the movie backed by Muddy Waters’ band. Sadly, the performance was edited down for the film, but thanks to the Internet, there’s this uncut version, in all it’s bluesy glory.

Lyrics

Boom, boom, boom, boom.
I’m gonna shoot you right down,
Knock you off of your feet,
And take you home with me.
Put you in my house.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love to see you strut
When you’re walking to me.
When you’re talking to me,
That knocks me out.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.
You know I like it like that,
With your baby-talk,
Oh, and the way that you walk.
You know it knocks me right down,
Knocks me off of my feet.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
How, how, how, how.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, now, now, now.