Songfacts®:

• This was written by Cher's husband at the time, Sonny Bono.
• In this song, Cher recalls playing childhood games with a boy when he would shoot her with his toy gun. They grow up together and get married but then he leaves her. She has again been shot down, but this time it's for real and she is devastated.
• Cher re-recorded the song in 1987 on her self-titled album with Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora on guitar.
• This was an international hit and Cher's biggest solo hit of the 1960s in the United States, selling over 3 million copies.
• A cover by Nancy Sinatra released as an album track the same year was used in the opening scenes of the 2003 Tarantino film Kill Bill Volume 1. Tarantino had wanted to use "Bang Bang" for a while and he finally found a way to do it. "Why my version, I'm not sure," Sinatra recalled to Uncut magazine. "I guess it was the guitar, the lonely sound of Billy Strange's guitar. It caused a resurgence for me. People were stunned when they saw my name on the screen, they didn't know it was my recording. But Quentin really gave me a new start."
  
  In 2005, the UK production duo Audio Bullys used Nancy Sinatra's rendition as a basis for a dance track, which reached #9 in the UK.
• A live cover of the song by Lady Gaga was included as an iTunes Store bonus track on her collaboration jazz album with Tony Bennett, Cheek to Cheek. Gaga explained during a Reddit AMA that she changed a lyric to make it more personal to her. "I thought of my ex-lover, he married someone else," said the songstress. "Not for me, no church bells rang."