Pop Song 332 of 500 'Green Onions' Booker T. & the M.G.'s 1962

Pop Song 332 of 500 'Green Onions' Booker T. & the M.G.'s 1962

"Green Onions" is an instrumental composition recorded in 1962 by Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Described as "one of the most popular instrumental rock and soul songs ever and as one of "the most popular R&B instrumentals of its era",the tune is a twelve-bar blues with a rippling Hammond M3 organ line by Booker T. Jones that he wrote when he was 17, although the actual recording was largely improvised in the studio.

According to Booker T. Jones, the composition was originally to be called "Funky Onions", but the sister of Jim Stewart thought it "sounded like a cuss word"; it was therefore renamed "Green Onions".According to Cropper, the title is not a marijuana reference; rather, the track is named after the Green Badger cat, Green Onions, whose way of walking inspired the riff. On a broadcast of the radio program Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on June 24, 2013, Jones was asked about the title and said, "The bass player thought it was so funky, he wanted to call it 'Funky Onions', but they thought that was too low-class, so we used 'Green Onions' instead.