Sugar Town

"Sugar Town" is a song written by songwriter-producer Lee Hazlewood and first recorded by American singer Nancy Sinatra in 1966. As a single released under the Reprise label, it peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1966, while reaching number one on the Easy Listening chart in January 1967.^[1] It became a gold record. The song was included on Nancy Sinatra's LP, Sugar, also released in 1966, and was featured in her 1967 TV special Movin' with Nancy, released on home video in 2000.^[2]

Like other songs Hazlewood wrote, "Sugar Town" was deliberately enigmatic: directed to a young audience, yet outwardly tame enough to receive radio play (though he denied that he had ever used LSD, or regularly partaken in drugs in general). He explained, "You had to make the lyric dingy enough where the kids knew what you were talking about—and they did. Double entendre. But not much more if you wanted to get it played on the radio. We used to have lotsa of trouble with lyrics, but I think it’s fun to keep it hidden a little bit."^[3]

The B-side to "Sugar Town" was "Summer Wine", a popular duet also written by, and featuring, Hazlewood.^[4]

In popular culture[]

The song plays in its entirety over the opening scene of Better Call Saul's season 3 opener, "Mabel."

Hong Kong artist Nancy Sit covered the song & was released by Crane Brand Records in 1967.

A cover of the song by Zooey Deschanel is also featured in the 2009 romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer.

Other Cover Versions[]

• Sugar Town was covered by Swedish band Shitkid on the 2017 album "Fish."

See also[]

• List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1967 (U.S.)
• Sugar cubes as a medium for ingesting LSD

References[]