Let’s Get Lyrical #18 – Def Leppard

A journey back to the eighties wouldn’t be complete without a little bit of hair metal, and who better to turn to than Def Leppard?  I’m sure there isn’t anything too embarrassingly risqué in the lyrics of Pour Some Sugar On Me…

Step inside, walk this way
You and me babe, Hey, hey!

So far, so bad with rhyme..

Love is like a bomb, baby, c’mon get it on

Hopefully without the same amount of shrapnel

Livin’ like a lover with a radar phone

Woah there!  What’s a radar phone?  Sounds futuristic!  Or at least, it might have done in an early episode of Buck Rogers…

Lookin’ like a tramp, like a video vamp

Is this him or her?  And is it good or bad?  The answer to both of these is ‘yes’.

Demolition woman, can I be your man?

Apparently there’s an ‘adult film’ called Demolition Woman.  According to the IMDB synopsis, “In the year 20014, the ozone has gone so completely haywire that men can no longer reproduce. So Demolition Woman Isis transports herself back to the year 1994 where she collects some virile sperm samples, in the form of surfer dudes Pete and Bob. She brings them into the future as breeding stock, but they will meet opposition, and danger, from a group of power mad, men hating feminists.”  Doesn’t that sound like a fantastic piece of cinema?

Razzle ‘n’ a dazzle ‘n’ a flash a little light
Television lover, baby, go all night

Well as long as there’s no vajazzling going on.

Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet
Little miss ah innocent sugar me, yeah

I don’t think that means anything, really.

Hey!
C’mon, take a bottle, shake it up

You can tell these guys are rock stars – that’s just madness!  What if it all fizzes up all over your hand?!

Break the bubble, break it up

… is that the same thing as bursting someone’s bubble?  I didn’t think it was that kind of song.

Pour some sugar on me

We could assume this to be a literal request to take that bag of tate and lyle out of the kitchen cupboard and pour it on the man…

Ooh, in the name of love

… But this implies that perhaps it is some sort of metaphor, perhaps referring to sweet sweet kisses.

Pour some sugar on me
C’mon fire me up

Maybe they’re practicing for an episode of Come Dine With Me where they’re planning on spinning hot sugar into an elaborate dessert basket?

Pour your sugar on me
Oh, I can’t get enough

I would caution you on that score, Leppards.  Type 2 Diabetes is man made, and this is the type of behaviour that can lead to it.

I’m hot, sticky sweet
From my head to my feet yeah

Well yes,that’ll happen if you submerge yourself in sugar I suppose.  Let that be a lesson to you.  It’ll be a bugger to clean up, too.  Still, it’s interesting to know that sugar has insulating properties.

Listen! red light, yellow light, green-a-light go!

You’ve chosen the wrong sense, there.  For those ones to work you want sight, not hearing.

Crazy little woman in a one man show

Surely that would be a one-woman show?  But I suppose that doesn’t scan.  Which is of utmost concern to Def Leppard…

Mirror queen, mannequin, rhythm of love
Sweet dream, saccharine, loosen up

I think here they’ve just taken a load of words that loosely rhyme and hoped for the best, really.

You gotta squeeze a little, squeeze a little
Tease a little more

OK, that sounds a bit rude.  But I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation.

Easy operator come a knockin’ on my door
Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet
Little Miss Innocent sugar me, yeah

Yeah, that doesn’t make a huge amount of sense either.  I assume they’re on a massive sugar high at this point and just saying anything that comes into their heads.
Chorus
[guitar solo]

You got the peaches, I got the cream

That’s definitely rude.

Sweet to taste, saccharine

Two ways of describing the same thing, there

‘Cos I’m hot, say what, sticky sweet
From my head, my head, to my feet

I like the rhyming of ‘hot’ and ‘say what’ there.  This is poetry right here.

Do you take sugar? one lump or two?

No, thank you.  This song has opened my eyes as to what can happen if you become too reliant on sugar, and I don’t want to be that guy.

If you have been affected by the issues raised by Def Leppard in Pour Some Sugar On Me, help can be found here.