95 Songs of Summer, #81 - "Sugar, Sugar" (1969)

"All right, go ahead, be snobs, just like you were in the Sixties.  But if you're gonna listen to Talking Heads, you might as well know that they cite bubblegum as one of their biggest influences and used to do the 1910 Fruitgum Co.'s "1,2,3 Red Light" onstage, just like Wilson Pickett had the good taste to cover "Sugar, Sugar," a rock and roll classic to which something like the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star" can't hold a handle."

- Lester Bangs, The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll

I freely admit it - I am one of those who loves "Sugar, Sugar." There is rarely a time when I don't put it on one of my running playlists, because it always seems to come on just when I need that little "pick me up" the most.

I was in the 4th grade when this song came out, around the time that "The Archies" was a staple of Saturday morning cartoons.  My friends and I thought the song was great, and to provide an example of the idiotic things that 4th graders can talk about sometimes, we used to debate/argue over which background vocals were being sung by Betty and which were being sung by Veronica.

I prefer to think that Veronica was the soulful sounding one.

The Archies, "Sugar, Sugar," from the summer of 1969.