Wooly Bully" is a song based on the 12 bar blues progression, made famous by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs in 1965.

As the Pharaohs prepared to write their debut album, lead singer Sam the Sham wanted to write a tribute to the Hully Gully dance. His record label's legal department feared using that title due to the existence of another song with a similar title. The song was given the green light after Sam rewrote the lyrics and replaced "Hully Gully" with "Wooly Bully".

It was the first American record to sell a million copies during the British Invasion, and was nominated for a Grammy Award.

After paying to record and press their own records to sell at their gigs, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs wound up with the Pen label in Memphis. There, they recorded what would prove to be their first and biggest hit ever, "Wooly Bully". It was a worldwide sensation, selling 3 million copies, and reaching No. 2 on the Billboard charts on June 5, 1965.

Although the "Wooly Bully" single never reached No. 1 on the national charts, it lingered in the Hot 100 for a then-impressive 18 weeks topping the Hot 100 chart to be named Billboard's "Number One Record of the Year", and remained so for 35 years, until Faith Hill's "Breathe" and Lifehouse's "Hanging by a Moment" repeated the feat in 2000 and 2001, respectively.

The lyrics of "Wooly Bully" were hard to understand, and some radio stations banned the song. The lyrics describe a conversation between "Hattie" and "Matty" concerning the American bison and the desirability of developing dance skills. The warning, "Let's not be L-7's", means "Let's not be squares", from the shape formed by the fingers making an L on one hand and a 7 on the other.

Sam the Sham underscores the Tex-Mex nature of the song by counting out the rhythm in Spanish, and the characteristic simple organ riffing. According to the song's writer Sam the Sham, "The name of my cat was 'Wooly Bully', so I started from there. The count down part of the song was also not planned. I was just goofing around and counted off in Tex-Mex. It just blew everybody away, and actually, I wanted it taken off the record. We did three takes, all of them different, and they took the first take and released it."


The song is also heard in a number of films:
Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
Full Metal Jacket, Splash,
Scrooged,
Happy Gilmore,
Monsters vs. Aliens,
Religulous,
Monsieur Ibrahim and
The Chipmunk Adventure, in which it is performed by the Chipmunks.