Lips Like Sugar

A significantly more accessible Bunnymen track than their reputation sometimes suggests, this is built on a guitar hook that moves with genuine playfulness, McCulloch's vocal riding it with an ease that suggests he found the whole arrangement amusing. The production is bright and somewhat radio-friendly compared to Ocean Rain's orchestral grandeur, the rhythm section propulsive. The lyric is as much sound as sense — images of sweetness and sensation strung together more for their sonic quality than their logical progression. McCulloch was always interested in the music of language as much as its meaning, and here that interest produces something that rewards pure surface listening more than close textual analysis. It became one of their most immediately appealing tracks, accessible without being simplified, retaining the quality of weirdness that made the band distinctive while wrapping it in something that could genuinely be called a pop song. The title image — lips like sugar — is sensuous and slightly strange at once, which is the right register for this band. A gateway drug to their more demanding work.