The impetus for the song came from when the then 19-year-old singer Sisqó joked that his hair turned white the first time he saw a thong, similar to Charlton Heston in the film The Ten Commandments.

In the first repetition, Sisqó sings the verse, which paints a picture of a sexy woman in a "scandalous" dress with a penchant for dancing.

The chorus is in two main parts: pulsing backing vocals which describe a love for certain beats and the dances that come with them accompany Sisqó's plea to see "That thong-th-thong-thong-thong."

A short, swelling instrumental section punctuated by Sisqó chanting "come on" leads into the climactic key change.

In Vice's The Story Of documentary on Thong Song, it was revealed that producers Bob Robinson and Tim Kelly warned Sisqó of using the lyrical reference to "Livin' La Vida Loca", which was interpolated at the end of each of the three verses.

Songwriter Desmond Child later received a significant writing credit, owning a majority of the publishing for "Thong Song" as a result.

There are also scenes with Sisqo and his backup dancers driving a Bentley Azure down the Florida Keys, and cameos from the other three members of Sisqó's group, Dru Hill, Method Man & Redman, Ja Rule, as well as LL Cool J. Sisqó performs acrobatic feats atop the crowd that contradict the laws of physics, culminating in a stage performance lit with blacklights and with an orchestra in the background.

So you can either accept it and do something like I did, or you can go and try and turn the 'Thong Song' into some kind of Chemical Brothers video and make it all pretentious; about some fucking communist upheaval or something.

"[13] Sisqó stated the video was carefully shot not to reveal too many buttocks in thong swimsuits but allowed with unorthodox camera angles.

In the alternative version of the video, after giving a radio interview with Nokio and Jazz of Dru Hill in his hometown of Baltimore, Sisqó escapes from a group of fans with the help of Foxy Brown to a fashion show.

Here, models strut in sexy costumes, which (again) all consist of bikinis just as in the original video, this time with the exception of two women in thongs.

[15] Matthew Morrison performed "Thong Song" as his character Will Schuester in the episode of Glee titled "Mash-Up", aired on October 21, 2009.

The Mad TV season 6 premiere featured a "Wrong Song" music video parody in which Aries Spears as Sisqó ridicules obese women for wearing thongs and bikinis.

[76] In 2016, Australian pop singer and songwriter Sia released This Is Acting, featuring the track "Sweet Design," which samples and references the "Thong Song.