Marcy Playground – Sex and Candy

I’m doing this post for Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday! The subject today is “Power Pop” so I could not pass this by. Power pop is my favorite genre of music. Today I’m focusing on the 1990’s band Marcy Playground. The main song today is “Sex and Candy” AND I also included their other hit “Sherry Fraser” above Sex and Candy at the bottom of the post. Give them both a listen if you can…and thank you Jim for inviting me.

With lyrics that included “Like disco superfly” and “In platform double suede” plus “Like disco Lemonade” my “like” meter went off the charts. I love the 70s-like phrases and the interplay between guitar and lyrics in this late 90s power pop song. It’s not a high-energy pop song by any measure but it keeps me interested.

I loved the overall sound of this band and was excited about what would come next. They really never hit with anything else after this. Sex and Candy was written by singer-songwriter and guitarist John Wozniak. Wozniak got their name from his childhood school called “Marcy Open School” located in Minnesota.

This song peaked at #8 on the Billboard 100 and #29 in the UK in 1997. The song was on their self-titled debut album. It peaked at #21 in the Billboard Album Charts, #16 in Canada, and #61 in the UK in 1998. It also peaked at #1 in the Billboard Heatseeker charts.

They released 3 more albums but none of them charted in Billboard 200. The band still releases albums and tours.

John Wozniak: “Where did I get the ‘sex and candy’ part from? Well, I was dating a girl and she was going to Bryn Mawr College and it’s where my dad teaches. And I was probably 17 or something like that and she was like 18. I always liked the older girls. (laughs) But we were in her dorm room, and her roommate came in and she saw us there, and she was like, ‘Oh, it smells like sex and candy in here.’ And I always remembered that. And that was back in the late ’80s.

And then when I was writing the song and I was coming up with all these weird disco-era references that I was making up, ‘platform double suede’ and all that business, I was like, hey, let’s just throw in that phrase that’s been sticking in my head for the last 5 years or whatever. So I wrote that song in ’92, ’93, somewhere around there. And it didn’t really come out until ’97. That song had been at least in my consciousness since the late ’80s. At least with the concepts behind it.

But it’s just about seeing some sexy girl and then falling in love, and then asking a dumb question to yourself… well, it’s not even asking a question. It’s just – I don’t know!! I don’t know. (laughing) I’m just gonna be straight up honest. I don’t know. I’m telling you, when I was very young I experimented with drugs, but when I was writing these songs, I wasn’t high. But it sounds like I was high.

Sex and Candy

Hangin’ round downtown by myself
And I had so much time
To sit and think about myself
And then there she was
Like double cherry pie
Yeah there she was
Like disco superfly

I smell sex and candy here
Who’s that lounging in my chair
Who’s that casting devious stares
In my direction

Mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this surely is a dream

Hangin’ round downtown by myself
And I had too much caffeine
And I was thinkin’ ’bout myself
And then there she was

In platform double suede
Yeah there she was
Like disco lemonade

I smell sex and candy here
Who’s that lounging in my chair
Who’s that casting devious stares
In my direction

Mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this surely is a dream

I smell sex and candy here
Who’s that lounging in my chair
Who’s that casting devious stares
In my direction

Mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this must be my dream

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

32 thoughts on “Marcy Playground – Sex and Candy”

    1. Yea me also. Right after Grunge this wave of power pop came through. I was talking about this to someone else the other day…they just didn’t stick.

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      2. Oh yea…it does sound like a college phrase I do agree. I like Sherry Fraser also…i love the echo in his voice.

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      4. I do also….this is why I’ve always liked the 90s more than the 80s…in the 90s this stuff was popular…in the 80s most of it was underground like The Replacements and others.

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      6. YEP! I love the last line! It was that “ME” time. The shame was there was great music in Alternative but JUST LIKE NOW…mainstream won’t play them.

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      8. Yea the Replacements wrote a song about that very thing called Bastards of Young…about the demands of Boomers.

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  6. one of those catchy one hit wonders of the 90s. At least they had their moment in the sun! I wonder if anyone tried to cash in back then and market a ‘disco lemonade’? What would that taste like?

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    1. I don’t know what it would taste like…but I would buy it! They missed the boat on that one.
      I do like Sherry Fraser also…love the echo in the song.

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    1. I need to check out their other albums. These two songs were really good to me and this one good a lot of airplay in my area. Sherry Fraser got a little bit.

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      Reply

    1. I totally agree…it was different for that time and now. Some good acts that I thought would last like Marcy Playground and Fastball…but neither really hit again.

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