WCSX Classic Cuts
The Hook: Their producer heard Joe Elliott singing the hook to himself in the studio hallway.
Album: Hysteria
Year: 1987
Writers: Joe Elliott, Steve Clark, Phil Collen, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, Rick Savage
Stats: Peaked at number-two on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2006, it was ranked number-two on VH1’s list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the ’80s.
Background: One of the classic cuts of the late ’80s might never have happened if Def Leppard producer Mutt Lange hadn’t overheard singer Joe Elliott at just the right time. Guitarist Phil Collen explains.
Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen on the creation of “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” OC:…right ingredients. :22
“Joe was sitting in the corridor. We’d finished all the songs, and we were just finishing the album up. And Joe’s going [sings] ‘pour some sugar on me’ and Mutt goes, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ And Mutt said, ‘You know what? I think this is actually going to be the most important song on the record, so we really need to record this.’ And we’d got the hang of it, and it was the quickest song on the record. It flew. And it had, just, all this stuff, you know. It was sexy, it just had all the right ingredients.”
