Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

This week’s theme is  “Cinnamon/Mint/Parsley/Pepper/Rosemary/Sage/Salt/Thyme.”

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If it isn’t spicy… it’s sweet, and I went in the other direction… because I’m me. 😀

Jeff Barry and Andy Kim wrote Sugar, Sugar with preschoolers in mind since that was the audience for the Saturday morning Archie TV show (Barry had children aged 3 and 4 at the time). The “You are my candy girl” line came from them thinking about what kids that age like (candy!). Still, they wanted the song to appeal to adults as well, so they included a line with some weight: “I just can’t believe the loveliness of loving you.”

The song reached No. 1 in the US on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1969, knocking Honky Tonk Women by the Rolling Stones out of the top spot and remained there for four weeks. It was also No.1 on the UK Singles chart in that same year for eight weeks.

Sugar, Sugar was the #1 song of 1969 in the US, according to Billboard’s year-end chart, beating out songs by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Jackson 5, Elvis Presley, David Bowie, and Stevie Wonder. It logged more weeks on the Hot 100 (22) than any other song that year.

In addition to Barry and Kim, “The Archies” included session musicians Toni Wine, Ron Dante and Ellie Greenwich. Kim had a hit in 1974 with Rock Me Gently; Dante produced Mandy for Barry Manilow and Heartbreaker for Pat Benatar. Greenwich and Barry, who were married from 1962-1965, wrote many famous songs, including Be My Baby and Chapel Of Love; Toni Wine wrote the hit songs A Groovy Kind Of Love and Candida.

FUN FACTS:

• The Archies group was put together by Don Kirshner, a prolific promoter and producer. Kirshner also created The Monkees, and wanted to do the same thing with cartoon characters because they are much easier to work with than people.
• The line, “Pour a little sugar on me, baby” inspired the title for the 1987 Def Leppard hit Pour Some Sugar On Me.
• R&B singer Wilson Pickett recorded a cover version of Sugar, Sugar in 1970 that reached #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 4 on the R&B chart. Pickett’s recording was later used in the 1997 film The Ice Storm.
• Sugar, Sugar wasn’t the first Archies song. The “group” released several singles in 1968, including Bang-Shang-A-Lang, written by Jeff Barry, which went to #22. The follow-up to Sugar, Sugar was Jingle Jangle, which reached #10 and went Gold.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for FeliciaDenise.com.

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.