Shake Your Bon-Bon

Album: Ricky Martin (1999)
Charted: 12 22
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • You can shake your booty, your groove thing, your rump, and thanks to Ricky Martin, your bon-bon on the dance floor. Bonbons are little chocolate treats, but here they're repurposed in a rather wholesome euphemism for your backside. The song itself is a musical bonbon, a fun little dance tune where Ricky Martin takes us on an adventure around the world, with stops in the Sahara and the Himalayas.
  • Ricky Martin was an international superstar by the end of 1998, when he released his fourth album, Vuelve. But it was "Livin' La Vida Loca," from his next album (his first primarily in English), that broke him in America. That song is almost entirely in English but has a pulsating Latin rhythm and loads of energy. "Shake Your Bon-Bon" follows a similar formula, with an unrelenting groove and a few recognizable Spanish words thrown in for spice ("hola amiga!").
  • The lyrics are very singable, even if they don't make sense. "Bon-bon" sounds like a drumbeat and allows for a chorus of just one repeated line: "Shake your bon-bon." Elsewhere, we get "silhouette" rhyming with "Juliet" and "Himalaya" rhyming with "lay ya." It's all good fun, with the words there to support the beat.
  • This song was written by Desmond Child, Robi Rosa and George Noriega, three writers of Latin heritage who were a big part of Ricky Martin's rise to stardom. Child and Rosa also co-wrote "Livin' La Vida Loca"; Noriega, who also produced "Shake Your Bon-Bon," also worked on Martin's songs "She's All I Ever Had" and "Loaded."
  • The music video, directed by Wayne Isham, shows Martin performing in front of a bank of monitors that flash different scenes we sometimes enter, following the "around the world" theme. It picked up MTV Video Music Award nominations for Best Dance Video and Best Male Video.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Edwin McCain

Edwin McCainSongwriter Interviews

"I'll Be" was what Edwin called his "Hail Mary" song. He says it proves "intention of the songwriter is 180 degrees from potential interpretation by an audience."

Church Lyrics

Church LyricsMusic Quiz

Here is the church, here is the steeple - see if you can identify these lyrics that reference church.

Julian Lennon

Julian LennonSongwriter Interviews

Julian tells the stories behind his hits "Valotte" and "Too Late for Goodbyes," and fills us in on his many non-musical pursuits. Also: what MTV meant to his career.

Jay, Peaches, Spinderella and other Darrining Victims

Jay, Peaches, Spinderella and other Darrining VictimsSong Writing

Just like Darrin was replaced on Bewitched, groups have swapped out original members, hoping we wouldn't notice.

Who Did It First?

Who Did It First?Music Quiz

Do you know who recorded the original versions of these ten hit songs?

Judas Priest

Judas PriestSongwriter Interviews

Rob Halford, Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton talk twin guitar harmonies and explain how they create songs in Judas Priest.