Songfacts®:

• Dean Martin originally recorded this in a Nelson Riddle-arrangement for his 1960 album This Time I'm Swingin!, but it didn't make the cut. That same year, he performed it in the movie Ocean's 11 in an alternate arrangement with Red Norvo and His Quartet.
• This was written by Sammy Cahn, with music by Jimmy Van Heusen, in 1960. Cahn and Van Heusen also wrote "To Love and Be Loved" for the 1959 film Some Came Running, starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.
  
  In that movie, there is a scene in which, after a poker hand with both Sinatra and Martin at the table, Sinatra's character says, "Ain't that a kick in the head." This scene would have been shot before the song was written. So the question is, did the line originate in James Jones' novel of the same name, or in the screenplay, or was it an ad lib? In any case, it seems likely to have been the be the impetus for the song. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  C Plus - Austin, TX
• Several artist have covered this, including Robbie Williams, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Westlife, David Slater, Ray Quinn, Hazell Dean, and Martin's daughter Deana Martin.
• Martin's version was used in the 1999 movie Payback while Mel Gibson is, appropriately, kicking an enemy in the head.
• This was also used on Veronica Mars, in the 2005 episode "Kanes and Abel's."
• Using archive recordings of Martin's performance, this was made into a duet with Kevin Spacey for Forever Cool, a compilation of duets released in 2007, 12 years after the singer's death.