“When we first released it in Europe it was ignored,” Collen confirms. The song wasn’t deemed good enough to be released as the first single from Hysteria instead it followed Animal into the UK chart in October 1987, reaching an unspectacular No.18. While it’s tempting to assume that Pour Some Sugar On Me was an instant smash hit, hard evidence shows otherwise.

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In stark contrast to the other tracks on Hysteria, the basic recording process for Sugar took less than two weeks. According to Elliott, the phrase was a “metaphor for whichever sexual preference you care to enjoy”. With Lange keeping impatient label executives away from the studio, Elliott, Collen, Allen, bassist Rick Savage and guitarist Steve Clark laid down the new track, which now had the working title. So there was plenty of space, like hip-hop or something like that.” And the guitar part was really just to fill the gaps without going all the way through it. Run DMC was really popular back then, and the whole Aerosmith crossover thing was just happening too, so we kinda stole that idea for the vocal. It was really based on rap stuff not your standard rock song. “I can’t actually do that, so Mutt had said: ‘Just make it very gappy.’ So I put this main riff in the gaps.

“Mutt Lange saw the intro as this kinda country guitar lick, played with his fingers,” Collen recalls. So although everyone went: ‘Oh, fucking hell, not more studio time,’ it was obvious that we had to do it.”Īs work on the new song began, Elliott’s hook started to evolve.

Once Mutt got involved it went pretty quick. “The main problem with Hysteria was us dicking around with people like Jim Steinman.

Just pour some sugar on me lyrics