Hidden Track 1: Sugar, Sugar by The Archies

Learning to embrace a little sugary pop music every now and then

My dad taught me every epic journey deserves a great soundtrack. My PalliMed Mixtape is the story of my Palliative Medicine Fellowship year, told in 15 songs.

Sugar, Sugar on Apple Music

The first time I heard U2’s War album I was at the home of my childhood pal Jim in 1988.  We had just built an amazing fort out of fall leaves and some rusty metal furniture in his backyard.  Now we had come inside to play with his GI Joe aircraft carrier and hang out with his cool older sisters.  We ate hard candy from a stash they always kept in a kitchen drawer.  What a day!  Idyllic, youthful, innocent, sweet. 

Then Jim pushed play on his double cassette deck boombox and U2’s Like A Song… from the album War started playing.  The music startled me.  This was not the sugary pop music I listened to on the Top 40 station at home.  What was this strange noise?  Larry Mullen, Jr’s crashing drum beats, Bono’s wild, impassioned singing, the arpeggiated guitar work and harmonies from the Edge, the up and down bassline from Adam Clayton.  This was a combative post punk minor chord intrusion into what had been my saccharine, candy-coated afternoon.  This album cover captures the vibe of War, and I wanted nothing to do with it:

I need to tell you what happened next, and I’m not proud of it.  I hope you won’t think less of me, but you almost certainly will.  Cornered and confused and overwhelmed by this clanging U2 battle cry at Jim’s house, I gathered what remained of my strength and went on a musical offensive.  “This song is stupid.  Why don’t you play some real music…like Paula Abdul!”

Yeah, that’s right—I countered U2 with Paula Abdul. Yikes. This still shot from the Opposites Attract music video captures my music taste at age nine:

(Photo: imbd.com)

Jim laughed and laughed.  “Paula Abdul songs are so lame! U2 is real music, and these guys are awesome.” He stuck to his guns, and War played on.

I would eventually eat a whole lot of crow on that little exchange. In the 35 years since that day at Jim’s, I have spent more time listening to U2 than any other band.  I have bought every U2 album—first on CD, then on iTunes, now I’m working on my U2 vinyl. The Joshua Tree is my desert island disc.  I have taken my wife and my kids to see them in concert.  I read all 600+ pages of Bono’s memoir and was sad when it ended.  I love U2. Their music transcends. They sing about things that matter—hard things, hopeful things.  They do great work in the world. Like Jim said and I would come to find out, U2 is real music.

 Conversely, I have spent approximately 6 minutes listening to Paula Abdul since the end of the 1980s.  All six of those minutes were yesterday when thinking about this story. I wish I could get all six of those minutes back.

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As I got older and developed my own music sensibilities, I found I no longer had patience for shallow, upbeat, sugary pop songs like those of Paula Abdul.  Mmm Bop, Bye Bye Bye, Mambo No. 5…I was having none of that.  Maybe it was the shame of having endorsed Forever Your Girl over Sunday Bloody Sunday.  Maybe it was that Grunge came along and beat the sugar out of me.  Maybe I was again emulating my dad, who I heard gripe about cheery pop songs from his past like the loathsome Build Me Up Buttercup.  Probably I was just trying to feel cool. Whatever it was steering me from away from pop, by 1994 I would walk off the high school dance floor on principle if the deejay dared to play The Sign by Ace of Bass.  Wasn’t I fun.

So why am I sneaking the song Sugar, Sugar by The Archies onto this mixtape?  Isn’t that the ultimate bubblegum pop song?  Isn’t that the perfect example of a shallow, vapid, overly cheery song?

Why yes, it is.  But I’ve mellowed a little in my music snobbery since the nineties.  It’s way more fun to stay out on the dance floor when the deejay spins Karma Chameleon than to sulk off with the other elitist bros.  Life’s too short to stay mad at catchy songs. That’s only part of it, though.

The real reason for sneaking Sugar, Sugar onto the mixtape is not that I like this song.  (This song is terrible, and it’s sung by cartoon characters!)  It’s that I need to use this song to tell you about Josefina, a 48-year-old ray of sunshine I got to know earlier this year.  She brought light, levity, and laughter into our hospital and into my fellowship training. 

She didn’t speak much English at all, and I was doing my best in Spanish while waiting for the hospital interpreter on the day I first met her. She laughed at how poorly we were communicating, and assured me in Spanish I was doing okay. As I tried again to explain in Spanish the delicate balance between her failing liver and her failing kidneys, I suddenly heard the chorus “Sugar…oh Honey, Honey” ring out from under her blanket.  Huh?  She ignored it, kept smiling, and we kept talking. 

Then it happened again.  “Sugar…oh, Honey, Honey.”  This time she pulled her cell phone out from down on the bed.  It turns out Sugar, Sugar by the Archies was her ringtone—she loved that song, and it matched her personality perfectly.  She laughed and laughed when she showed me her phone, and her singing along with it drew me right in.  Here I was trying to talk about death and dying and Josefina had me singing cheery pop music!

Ah, sugar / Oh honey, honey / You are my candy girl

That’s how it was in her room every day.  I would walk in, she would smile at me, and she would start singing. 

Her sister, Claudia, always at the bedside, seemed to understand that Josefina was nearing the end of her life, even if Josefina herself never really outwardly acknowledged how sick she was.  Josefina was holding out for a miracle, and I had no problem with that.  Her faith was a source of great strength and great joy.  It’s just that Josefina, undocumented as she was, was not a candidate for a transplant, and there were no other medical tricks up our sleeves. 

She heard us deliver hard news every day, but she didn’t want to admit to anything negative—she would get better, you see.  She would get home to Mexico to be with her family in due time.  You’ll see.  Claudia, though, knew better.  Claudia, it seemed, knew it was time to embrace the minor chords; Josefina stuck to her bubblegum pop.

She got a little worse every day for about a week until even she could deny it no longer—she was dying.  I walked into her room on a Wednesday, and she asked me to play her a very different song: Volver a Creer by Jose Jose.  I had never heard of this song before, but I dialed it up on my phone and pushed play.  A slow ballad sung by an aging Mexican crooner, I heard in this song a beautiful sadness, a remorse, but also a sort of triumph and resolve—a resolve to make every last moment count. 

(Photo: wikipedia)

Josefina must have known she needed this particular song to break through that outer shell of positivity at last. The song did the work almost instantly, stirring up emotions deep and true like only music can. Huge tears began streaming down her face as soon as the song started up. Josefina let out uncontrolled chest-heaving sobs as she tried and failed to sing along with Jose Jose’s poignant lyrics. Claudia, always at her side, hugged her and kissed her cheeks, kissed her forehead, kissed her eyes, kissed her tears. I’m not sure I have ever seen a more moving embrace.

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A few days later I arrived at the hospice house just an hour or so after Josefina had died.  Her family surrounded her as the chaplain prayed, Volver a Creer by Jose Jose played over Claudia’s phone, and Josefina, lying in repose, smiled. 

Ah, honey / Oh sugar, sugar / You are my candy girl

I’m glad to have a reason to embrace some lighthearted pop again.  Thank you, Josefina, for helping me not take everything, even music, so seriously all the time.  Thank you for helping me remember to laugh and smile and sing, even in the face of unthinkable illness, even in the face of bubblegum pop.

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Tell me Crash Cart Campfire friends:

• What’s your favorite bubblegum pop song?

• Has music ever helped you find a much needed catharsis?

• What’s on your mixtape?