A lot of times pop songs get written, especially in LA, after the melodies are be done. So in the case of “Sugar,” my friend walked in and he had the melody already. He had recorded it, but the demo was just sort of gibberish with words here and there.
I was I guess known as a lyrics guy – there are other people that are melody guys – and they will have their melodies and ask me to put lyrics, which is a little bit like putting a puzzle together. And we actually struggled with this one quite a bit. But once I heard the melody I knew it was a very special song and I fell in love with it before I had even done anything.
So I sat down with Jay Cash, an incredible writer, and we sort of bumped our heads against the wall for an entire day on how to write the lyrics. We tried different things and pretty much failed.
And then I was going back to Michigan for the holidays, I think at Christmas time. Before I leave LA I always want to do a bunch of work. So I was working on “Sugar,” but I didn’t have the word sugar in it. Then it just sort of came to me, all the words.