Musical Mondays: Food!

I have quite a few favorite songs by Pistol Annies, but I dropped “Lemon Drop” at the end of Supergroups so I could do a playlist of songs with food in the title. And since Halloween is later this week, gotta start with candy.

Cameo “Candy”

Contrary to my limited belief growing up, Cameo isn’t the name of the guy with the mustache — Cameo is the band, and there are usually around 14 people in it. They’d been putting out moderately successful singles since the mid 1970s, but finally hit their stride in 1986 when Word Up! came out with the title track, “Back and Forth,” and “Candy” all landing in the top 5 of the R&B chart.

DNCE “Cake by the Ocean”

Joe Jonas and a couple of folks from the Jonas Brothers backing band got together to form this group when Joe was living with the drummer. Like many songs about food, “Cake by the Ocean” is about sex. The idea came from the producers who used to mess up the cocktail “Sex on the Beach,” calling it a Cake by the Ocean.

D’Angelo “Brown Sugar”

Sometimes a song about food is actually a song about sex or having sex with a woman. But sometimes a song about food is actually a song about sex with a woman as a metaphor for smoking weed. This the latter.

Maria “Coffee in Bed”

For a while there in the 90s, it felt like every R&B single had to have a remix by Danish producers Soulshock & Karlin, so it made sense for them to find their own R&B artist in Denmark. Maria debuted in 2003, but I don’t remember hearing about her — I just randomly bought the CD on a whim because it was on sale at Best Buy back in the day. Twenty years later I still put it on though. An excellent time capsule of the era.

Tracy Byrd “Watermelon Crawl”

Not only have I been listening to this song for my entire life, because I grew up in bowling alleys across the Deep South, but they also made us learn the line dance to this in gym. Because that’s a thing we did in the South. Part of your Physical Education credit was a segment on learning line dances.

Kylie Minogue “Chocolate”

The US is just determined not to let Kylie succeed here. Can you believe this song didn’t even chart in the States?

Kelis “Milkshake”

Everybody knows this song from Tasty. Not only did she throw another food song on that same album, she put out a whole album called Food a few years later with tracks like “Jerk Ribs” and “Biscuits & Gravy.”

System of a Down “Chop Suey!”

This song doesn’t really have anything to do with chop suey or food at all. The band just changed the title of it because “Suicide” probably wouldn’t fly at radio. Another fun fact: I had a little black Dodge Neon with crappy speakers and saved up my money for a new sound system because this song sounded so bad on it and it deserved better speakers.

Robyn “Honey”

I have 13 songs on my Starred playlist with “honey” in the title, ranging from The Four Tops to Mariah Carey. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this one by Robyn is my favorite of the bunch. The sound isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but the girls who get it really get it.

Wade Bowen “Death, Dyin’, and Deviled Eggs”

I still remember how good the fried chicken was at my mama’s funeral dinner. The church ladies set up tents and tables in the backyard and we also had casseroles, pecan pies, sweet tea, and deviled eggs — just like Wade sings in this song. If you’ve never been to a Southern funeral, this is as good a description as any.

Fantasia “Collard Greens & Cornbread”

An ode to love, Fantasia knows if her man says she’s better than her mama’s collard greens & cornbread, there’s no higher praise!

Alvvays “Atop a Cake”

Alvvays is a band from Toronto that I’ve seen at a couple of little shows in NYC over the years. “Atop a Cake” is lead vocalist Molly singing to her boyfriend about how she’s not ready to get married, basically the opposite of “Collard Greens & Cornbread.” Personally, if you write a song about how you don’t want to marry me, you don’t need to worry about writing anything else about me because you won’t see me again.

Ashley McBryde “Women Ain’t Whiskey”

Ashley is a bit of a vocal chameleon, and I swear she sounds just like Reba on this song.

Mista “Blackberry Molasses”

Organized Noize (En Vogue “Don’t Let Go,” TLC “Waterfalls,” Outkast “So Fresh, So Clean,” etc.) put together this group from Atlanta in the mid-90s. This was their only moderate hit, but Bobby Valentino went solo and had a few bops.

Harry Styles “Watermelon Sugar”

In Watermelon Sugar is a post-apocalyptic novel from the 60s by Richard Brautigan. Camille Rowe is a French model/actress who used to date Harry Styles. She liked the book and he wrote this song about her.

Mtume “Juicy Fruit”

James Mtume was a percussionist who toured with Miles Davis and he put together a funk band in the 70s, releasing this song about oral sex in 1983. Also iconic to me personally is the fact that James Mtume produced the theme song to New York Undercover.