Warren Zevon Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Boom Boom Mancini

Boob Boom Mancini is a song on Warren Zevon's 1987 album, Sentimental Hygiene.

Theme

The song is greatly based on lightweight boxer Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini. The chorus documents, in the first verse the Mancini-Arturo Frias fight in Las Vegas on May 8, 1982. In what was often called the best first round in boxing history. Frias wobbled Mancini and bloodied the challenger's nose in the fight's opening minute, only to have Mancini drop him and win the fight by knockout in the last minute of the first round. ("And he put him away in round number one.")

The song documents Mancini's now legendary fight with Alexis Arguello for the lightweight title, as he started out strong, however was defeated in the end.

The song's bridge also documents Mancini's match against the South Korean challenger, Duk Koo Kim, his first title defence. It was a 14 round fight. Kim suffered brain injuries that led to his death five days later Mancini went to the funeral in South Korea, but he fell into a deep depression afterwards. He has said that the hardest moments came when people approached him and asked if he was the boxer who "killed" Duk Koo Kim.

Music

The song is heavy on distorted electric guitar. The song sounds in the key of F minor, however, written in E minor. The guitars are tuned to standard "E" tuning with a capo on the first fret making the song being playing in the position of E minor, but toned in F minor. The song features two blues based guitar solos and a piano solo as the outro fades out.

The song was also played on the live acoustic album Learning to Flinch. This version is, infact played in E minor, not F minor. Also, instead of fading out the ending segues into the intro of "Jungle Work".

Advertisement