Nancy Sinatra’s 20 best songs, ranked

The selection runs from a Bond parody — “The Last of the Secret Agents?” with its twanging guitar and John-Barry-mocking brass — through a string of duets, single-sided gems and dramatic solo performances, finishing with “Some Velvet Morning.” Along the way there are novelty records, heartbreak anthems and provocations disguised as pop.

Sinatra’s collaborations with Lee Hazlewood recur throughout the list, from the bizarre charm of “Life’s a Trippy Thing” — featuring the line “Hello, birdies! Hello, spring!” — to the two main duet types: the weirdly erotic pairings and the songs where Hazlewood plays a loser and Sinatra the long-suffering partner, as in “I’ve Been Down So Long (It Looks Like Up to Me),” which ends with a fabulously sarky “Poor Lee.” Several singles show Sinatra’s range: the tough, career-defining “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” the full-throttle follow-up “How Does That Grab You, Darlin’?” with the cry “You smart alec tomcat, you!,” and the mischievous “Sugar Town,” noted for its sly reference to the joys of LSD.

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