• Track: Lips Like Sugar
• Artist: Echo & The Bunnymen
• Album: Echo & The Bunnymen
• Year: 1987

Lyrics:

She floats like a swan
Grace on the water
Lips like sugar
Lips like sugar
Just when you think you’ve caught her
She glides across the water
She calls for you tonight
To share this moonlight

You’ll flow down her river
She’ll ask and you’ll give her
Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses
Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses

Just when you think she’s yours
She’s flown to other shores
To laugh at how you break
And melt into this lake

She knows what she knows
I know what she’s thinking
Sugar kisses
Sugar kisses
Just when you think she’s yours
She’s flown to other shores
To laugh at how you break
And melt into this lake

You’ll flow down her river
But you’ll never give her
Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses
Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses

She’ll be my mirror
Reflect what I am
A loser and a winner
The King of Siam
And my Siamese twin
Alone on the river
Mirror kisses
Mirror kisses

Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses
Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses

Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses
Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses

Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses
Lips like sugar
Sugar kisses

For many, Echo & The Bunnymen exist in a vacuum that begins and ends in the 1980s. However, music aficionados know that Ian McCulloch and the boys have continued producing excellent pop-infused rock well into the 2000s. 

Today’s track, Lips like Sugar, was the band’s biggest moment commercially in the U.S., though they’ve released 12 studio albums, 10 live albums, 9 compilation albums, 8 EPs, and 30 singles.

The band formed in Liverpool in 1978 and had a few minor hits in the UK, but it had yet to make much of a dent in the U.S. charts until its self-titled fifth record dropped in 1987. The record is fantastic from opening note to closing note, and it remains in regular rotation here at the Dances with Bass subterranean lair. While its self-titled record remains its most popular in terms of sales, 1984’s Ocean Rain spawned two new wave radio cult tracks, The Killing Moon and Seven Seas, which are still popular in certain circles, including ours. The band seamlessly blends new wave, rock, and pop with the tiniest dash of goth to produce music that remains relevant 40 years later.

Sadly, drummer Pete de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1989, and vocalist Ian McCulloch left the band. Echo & The Bunnymen released one album without McCulloch—1990’s Reverberation—with former St. Vitus Dance vocalist Noel Burke at the mic. The record was panned by critics.

In 1993, the band reformed with McCulloch and have since released six new albums, including 2014’s Meteorites. Also, the band has announced that a new album—The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon—will be released in May 2018, which is reason enough for us to break out our Flock of Seagulls hair and get gnarly.

And if you believe Echo & The Bunnymen are only capable of producing new wave pop, I’d urge you to give them a listen because they are a rock band through and through. Ian McCulloch’s voice is often compared to that of Jim Morrison, and the band even did a fantastic cover of People Are Strange for The Lost Boys soundtrack in 1987. The band makes excellent use of big guitars, heavy drums, and McCulloch’s big-as-a-house vocals to produce flat-out rock and roll records, such as 2009’s The Fountain.

Video:

Here is the official video for Lips Like Sugar:

Here is the official video for the aforementioned cover of People Are Strange:

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