[1] The song was inspired by his high school girlfriend Anita "Pretty" Billings, with whom he shared a birthday of March 7.

[2][nb 1] Describing how the song came to him, Lee stated: "I was living on Sunset and woke up early one morning.

"[4] The lyrics describe Lee's frustration at teenage life—the reference to "in my lonely room I'd sit, my mind in an ice cream cone" being to wearing (in reality or metaphorically) a dunce's cap.

[8] The sessions were tumultuous due to the song's fast and intense drum part, with Lee and drummer Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer taking turns trying to accomplish it.

[8] The song took 4 hours to record according to Echols, who also claimed that the session took longer due to Holzman and Botnick objecting to the band's experimentation: "they kept stopping us, saying, 'It's feeding back!'

'"[13] In what has been called a "flirtation" with musique concrète,[14] the track climaxes with the sound of an atomic explosion before a peaceful conclusion, in a blues form, which then fades out.

[15] Elektra released the band's second album, Da Capo, in November,[18] with "7 and 7 Is" sequenced as the fourth track, between "¡Que Vida!"

[20] Cash Box described the song as a "pulsating, rhythmic extremely danceable blueser with a clever gimmick wind-up".

[21] Described as garage rock,[22] proto-punk[23][24][25] and folk rock,[26] the song was later covered by numerous bands, most notably Ramones, Alice Cooper, Jared Louche and The Aliens,[27] The Electric Prunes, Billy Bragg, The Sidewinders, The Fuzztones, Robert Plant, Rush, Alice Bag, The Bangles, Deep Purple, and Hollywood Vampires as well as a re-recording by Lee himself.