Suppy Sup! Let's Rate "Sugar" Songs

Dec 28, 2022

I was dead-ass about to write a “2022 Highlights” newsletter issue. Fuck that! Chances are if you’re reading this, you know I was on Password! You know I play D&D and read books and hang with my friends and all that jazz. Lots of good happened this year!

Instead, let’s rate songs with “Sugar” in the title, based on how literally you can interpret the word within its context.

Rating “Sugar” Songs!

“Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies

You can’t even call it subtext here. “Sugar, Sugar” uses the classic sugar/honey pairing, which we’ll see in a later pick. No room for interpretation from The Archies on this one.

“When I kissed you girl, I knew how sweet a kiss could be.”

Hate to break it to you, folks, but he’s talking about a girl. I know because he says it. Perhaps you, like me, picked up on it when he said “You are my candy girl, and you’ve got me wanting you.”

“Sugar, Sugar” also deploys the ever-popular “pour sugar on me” trope, which will rear its head again, just you wait.

I’ll give it a point for packing in so many candy references. But I’m not fooled. All metaphor, no actual sugar here.

“Sugar, Sugar” Rating: 1/10

“I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl” by Nina Simone

The opening lyrics (also the title of the song) make this one a slam-freakin-DUNK. But then we get “I want a little sweetness in my soul.”

“I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl” descends into the overtly sexual, even whipping out the term “daddy.”

I give it a few points more than The Archies because, indeed, if you’re baking a cake, you will put sugar in a bowl at some point.

“I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl” Rating: 2.5/10

“Sugar” by Sister Sparrow

Here’s where my bias trickles in. I love this song.

HOWEVER. Unless this song is about two bakers meeting—one who forgot to order more sugar and another who will happily lend their sugar to the first—this is just another song in which “sugar” is a stand-in for “sex.”

Don’t get me wrong: it’s kinda hot. But the “hot” I want is a fresh 425 degrees, baked for 20 minutes, cooled, and frosted. Spare me the bed sheets, give me the baking sheets.

“Sugar” Rating: 3/10 but only because it’s a banger.

“Pour Some Sugar On Me” by Def Leppard

You might think this is another 1/10. It even has the “pour” trope right there in the title. Listen closer and you might realize, like I did with my huge brain, that Def Leppard’s rock anthem is in fact written from the POV of a wedding cake, begging for sugar to be poured upon it “in the name of love,” aka Brad and Jenny’s upcoming nuptuals.

This reading requires full ignorance of the verse lyrics. I can barely understand them in the track, and I’m not gonna look them up.

“Pour Some Sugar On Me” Rating: 7/10

“Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles

Nope! It’s more about berries and fruit and being all hot and bothered (and breathing exercises?) than it is about sugar.

“Watermelon Sugar” Rating: 0/10

I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) by The Four Tops

All my life, I’ve waited for a song about a delicious pie. A pie so steamy and fruity I can’t help but dive face-first into it. “I’m weaker than a man should be,” The Four Tops sing. “I’m a fool in love, you see.”

This song brandishes the sugar/honey combo to exquisite effect. But the true miracle of “I can’t help myself” is that it’s so vague it could literally be about a real, baked-to-order pie. The sugar here is quite literal indeed, and I can’t help myself.

“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” Rating: 9/10

“Sugar” By Maroon 5

“Sugar” falls apart immediately. Even worse when you watch the video. Sugar means love and your special someone here, but the song is such a pastiche of sweetness and a ploy for virality that it can’t stand up against even a rudimentary hunt for literal sugar.

I actually like the song, though, so whatever. Take a 1. Also, do you think Adam Levine looks at a cake and says “Damn, that body of yours is insane.”

“Sugar” Rating: 1/10

“A Spoonful for Sugar” by Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins

Fucking YES! This is how you DO it, Mary P!

Yeah, the whole song’s a lesson about how gamifying a tedious task can make it easier to do. But it’s couched in a very real and actionable piece of advice: “a spoonful of sugar”—a real, actual spoonful of sugar—does indeed help bad-tasting medicine go down smooth.

Mary Poppins knows what’s poppin’, and in this case it’s literal sugar. No notes.

“A Spoonful of Sugar” Rating: 12/10, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. (I just spelled that from memory without looking it up and I’m pretty sure I nailed it.)

Watch, Read, Play, Listen

Tinykin, available for most gaming systems. Pure puzzle platforming fun. Absolutely adoring this game!
Sports Story, how I’ve awaited your release. It’s buggy and messy, but the developers are working on a fix and I love it anyway.
Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky is the third in a series, and It’s a departure from the formula of the first two. Lots of fun. An intriguing, philosophically challenging sci-fi read!
Thank you all for reading an increasingly ridiculous newsletter. See you in the New Year with more Suppy Sup!