Songfacts®:

• In this energetic country-rock hit, Hank Williams Jr. tells the story of his colorful upbringing and rise to fame.
  
  Well, my mama met my daddy down in Alabam'
  They tied the knot so here I am
  
  As the son of legendary performer Hank Williams, the junior Hank - nicknamed Bocephus - had music in his blood but he still needed some help with the basics, despite grandiose claims to the contrary:
  
  Now before I could walk, I had a guitar in my hand
  By the time I could talk, I had my own band
  
  Luckily, his childhood came equipped with built-in music teachers in the form of his dad's famous friends like Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Merle Haggard, who taught him to play a variety of instruments. Junior was just three years old when his father died in 1954, but was prepared to follow in his footsteps before he reached double digits.
  
  I went on the road when I was eight years old
  When I turned 15, I was stealing the show
  
  By the time he was eight years old, he was on stage singing his father's songs. In 1968, a few years after making his recording debut with a cover of Hank Sr's "Long Gone Lonesome Blues," Bocephus was offered the lead role in the film A Time To Sing. But make no mistake, he'd never become a movie star - he was bred for a different purpose:
  
  I'll take your money, I'll make you a movie
  But I can tell you right now I am born to boogie
• Williams was in the midst of working on his 40th album, Born To Boogie, when the idea for the title tune struck him in the wee hours of the morning. Just a few hours later, he had the whole song down on a tape recorder, but bringing it to life in the studio was a different matter. According to co-producer Jim Ed Norman, they had trouble keeping the pulse of the tune so he suggested bringing in a drum machine, something Williams had never done before.
  
  "We set a clock track and used a drum machine through there to help anchor the song," Norman explained in The Billboard Book Of Number One Country Hits. "Then it ended up staying on the record. If you listen to the recording to this day, you've got that backbeat/handclap thing which is actually from the drum machine."
• Norman's co-producer, Barry Beckett, achieved the song's defiant edge by unintentionally drawing the ire of the musicians, who were running out of steam playing the track's hard shuffle over the course of a six-hour session.
  
  "That was a heck of a song, and most of the takes, everybody was getting tired before the end of it," Beckett recalled. "So I guess everybody got mad at me. They eventually said, 'We're gonna get this take, do or die.' That's actually the defiant kind of attitude that's on the record: 'We dare you to tell us this is not right.'"
• If Williams had really told movie producers he was "born to boogie" back in '68, they would've assumed he was adopting a boogie-woogie blues rhythm or, just a couple years later, getting ready to put on his boogie shoes to dance the night away at the nearest disco. But this is 1987, and Williams' brand of boogieing is cutting loose and partying ("I was put here to party and I was born to boogie").
  
  In fact, Bocephus insists he's the same hard-drinking, hat-wearing, guitar-toting rough-houser from the bayou who likes to get down with all his rowdy friends - a reference to his 1984 chart-topper "All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)."
• Williams sings of being "born on the bayou on the Texas line, loved in Louisiana and raised on Jambalaya." Jambalaya is a spicy Creole and Cajun dish made up of sausage, vegetables, and rice - but it's also the title of one of Hank Sr's classic hits: "Jambalaya (On The Bayou)." Bocephus cut it for his debut release, Hank Williams Jr. Sings The Songs Of Hank Williams, in 1964.
• "Born To Boogie" is Williams' 10th single to top the Country chart. He first reached the apex in 1970 with "All For The Love Of Sunshine."
• Williams recorded a new version with Brantley Gilbert, Brad Paisley, and Justin Moore for his 2016 album, It's About Time. He told ABC Radio he was initially reluctant to revisit the classic tune. He thought, "I've already sold millions on that one. I've got new stuff!" But when three fellow country stars agreed to sign on to the project, he had a change of heart.
• Lynyrd Skynyrd covered this for the 2003 tribute album, The Songs Of Hank Williams Jr. - A Bocephus Celebration. They also recorded a live version featuring Williams in 2006, which was released on the band's Live In Atlantic City album in 2018.
• The album earned Williams a Grammy nomination for Best Male Country Vocal Performance at the 1988 ceremony, where Randy Travis took the prize for Always & Forever.
• In 1987 Williams was named Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (ACM) and the Country Music Association (CMA). "Born To Boogie" was also nominated for Song of the Year and Single Record of the Year at the ACM Awards, and its namesake won Album of the Year at the CMA Awards in 1988.
• This was used on the TV show The Righteous Gemstones in the 2019 episode "Interlude."