Def Leppard News - 29 Years Ago Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On Me #18 In The UK

29 Years Ago Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On Me #18 In The UK

Monday, 3rd October 2016

Def Leppard's classic Pour Some Sugar On Me single hit Number 18 in the UK singles chart 29 years ago on this day in 1987.

The second single to be released from the Hysteria album in the UK.

The follow up to 'Animal' which had reached Number Six in August giving the band their first ever Top Ten single and the first UK chart success.

It was released on 7th September 1987 reaching Number 18 and spent six weeks on the UK chart.

Four weeks inside the Top 40.

It entered at Number 31 and rose to 20 in week two before reaching its peak position in week 3.

The second Top 20 hit from the album.

Its success was helped by a second appearance on Top Of The Pops on 17th September.

Read quotes from Joe below where he recounts how the song was written and recorded.

M/A/R/R/S were at Number One on this day with their single 'Pump Up The Volume'.

Other notable rock acts on the chart included recent Lep tour mates Heart with 'Who Will You Run To' (30) and KISS with Crazy Crazy Nights' a new entry at 32.

Read more about this song.

UK Singles Chart - 3rd October 1987

01 - M/A/R/R/S - Pump Up The Volume
02 - Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up
03 - Michael Jackson - Bad
04 - Cliff Richard - Some People
05 - Madonna - Causing A Commotion
18 - Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me

Pour Some Sugar On Me 1987.
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Pour Some Sugar On Me - Joe Elliott Interview Quotes

"Well PSSOM was probably the most important song we’ve ever done because it was totally responsible for kicking Hysteria from big album to extremely big album. I mean it was a so-so hit in England, I think it kinda got to like number 18, it just broke the top twenty. In America it was huge!, I mean it was really, really huge. I remember the record company people telling me like months afterwards when they were checking back over things that song was pretty much responsible for selling 4 million albums in three months which is a phenomenal amount of records."

"I was working on another song and Mutt, I think it was only me and him in Holland at the time, everybody else was on a break cause I was doing vocals so no point in anyone else being around so they’d go home for a couple of weeks."

"Mutt had gone for a pee and I picked up the acoustic and started messing around with this thing and he came back in and just asked me what it was probably thinking it was a Stones song or something. And I remember him saying like, ‘This is the best hook I’ve heard for about 5 years’, he said ‘Can we stop doing this’. Cause nobody wanted to do anymore, everybody was exhausted they would never have gone for another song."

"So basically me and him put a really rough backing track together really quickly in like a few hours and then played it over the phone or a few people came back a few days later and said OK we’ll do it and we did it real quick. It became like one of the most important things we’ve ever done."

1995 Vault Liner Notes - Joe Elliott Quote

"Kind of got written by accident at the end of the "Hysteria" sessions. Turned out to be one of the most important songs we ever did. Pure sex."