The title and the lyrics "Niki Hoeky" were inspired by a 1955 Dick Tracy newspaper story. A plot in which the famous DT villain Mumbles was teamed up with two wild boys whose names were Neki and Hokey. The two boys frequently shouted their names "Neki Hokey!" throughout the story arc. Even after that particular plot was over, some of the DT characters continued to say "Neki Hokey" from time to time, as a variant of "Okey-dokey" (i.e. "all right"). Fast forward to 1966. P.J. Proby undoubtedly remembered reading the DT story in the newspaper when he was younger, but couldn't recall the proper spelling of "Neki Hokey." Thus, it came out "Niki Hoeky" and the nonsense words inspired by a Dick Tracy comic strip story became the basis for this mostly nonsensical song. According to Chester Gould (the original creator of Dick Tracy), the expression '"Neki Hokey" comes from a south seas tribe and means almost anything - from joy to anger, from hello to farewell.' Whether this is based on actual fact or was just something Gould made up to further the story is not known.

Think this song is about mad, rabid, fire-breathing horses? Think again - it's really about automobiles and the air pollution they were generating back when this song was written (1972). Cars were running on leaded gas and they really were "smoking up the sky," especially in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. Fortunately, now that most cars run on unleaded gas, air quality has noticeably improved. (Diesel engines are still a health hazard, unfortunately.) Why horses? Because the term "horsepower" is used to measure the strength of piston engines, the kind that automobiles use. "Crazy horses all got riders and they're you and I" - riders = drivers and passengers. Bottom line: This was a protest song against air pollution caused by car exhaust fumes.

Here we see a very early example of product placement (in this case for Wells Fargo) in a musical which later became a movie. Though this is probably the most famous cinematic Wells Fargo reference, the second most famous would have to be the appearance of the Wells Fargo stagecoach in Back to the Future Part III (which again was product placement). Google Wells Fargo wagon logo and view Google Images to see earlier versions of the company logo that displayed the iconic horse-drawn wagon/stagecoach. In addition to the above product placement in this song, there's also a reference to Montgomery Ward, proving that Bucky the cat from "Get Fuzzy" was wrong when he claimed that there were no product placements in musicals!