27 Best Songs About Candy

Many of the songs about candy in this list use it as a metaphor for love and desire. Some are about a girl named Candy who's compared to sweet things.
These songs about sweets all reference candy or sugar in some way and can make you crave your favorite treat.
Contents
1. “Lollipop” by The Chordettes
Song Year: 1958
This classic be-bop song by girl group the Chordettes has an unforgettable chorus and a bright, bouncy sound that makes it fun and enduring.
The tune innocently compares a man to a lollipop and sings about how sweet and loved he is. “Mr. Sandman” was the other big hit by the Chordettes, another song still sung and played regularly today.
2. “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow
Song Year: 1982
Originally released in 1965 by The Strangeloves, this song found its biggest success with the Bow Wow Wow version. Cody Simpson released a cover of the song in 2011, and Backstreet Boy Aaron Carter covered it in 2000.
Candy, the girl in the song that the singer wants, gets compared to everything sweet and lovely.
3. “Hardy Candy” by Counting Crows
Song Year: 2002
This mournful-sounding song uses hard candy as a metaphor for something sweet and fun but not good for you.
Unlike many songs about candy that are positive, this one is about lost love and nostalgia. The narrator remembers the sweet part of being in love. He soon realizes that focusing too much on those memories keeps him from moving on with his life.
4. “Cotton Candy Land” by Elvis Presley
Song Year: 1963
Elvis Presley sang this song to a little girl to help her get to sleep in 1963's It Happened at the World's Fair.
Unlike many songs about candy on this list that use candy as a metaphor, this song is about a literally cotton candy land filled with sweets where the fairy tale sandman lives.
Elvis often sang in his films and made hits of those records, like “Jailhouse Rock,” one of the best movie songs of all time. He also released this song on an album after the film.
5. “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent
Song Year: 2005
This hip-hop song by 50 Cent uses lollipops and candy shops as sexual metaphors in this seductive track with a mellow rap beat.
He invites the woman to his candy shop, and the lyrics make it clear that he's encouraging her to perform oral sex on him.
6. “Bubblegum World” by 1910 Fruitgum Company
Song Year: 1968
People often use the word bubblegum to describe sweet but short-lived things with little real substance, like saying “bubblegum pop” to define pop music.
In this song, the bubblegum world the narrator tells a girl she's living in is a fantasy land of stringing boys along without committing and playing games with their hearts.
7. “Hard Candy Christmas” by Dolly Parton
Song Year: 1982
Dolly Parton played Miss Mona, a Madame at a “chicken ranch,” in the 1982 movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. When all the girls were leaving the ranch, Parton's character sang this song, which isn't about Christmas.
She muses about everything she might do with her life now that it has to change and mentions a hard candy Christmas.
Though many people play this song during the holidays filled with nostalgia, it's referencing hard times when many kids' only Christmas presents were inexpensive hard candy. It implies difficult times to come, but of course, with the implication that she'll get through it.
8. “A Marshmallow World” by Bing Crosby
Song Year: 1950
Many popular crooners released versions of this song after Bing Crosby hit #24 on the pop singles chart with his. Vic Damone and Dean Martin are among those who sang popular versions in the 50s and 60s.
The song's comparison of the snow-covered ground and fluffy clouds to marshmallows makes this light-hearted song a winter and Christmas classic for many fans.
9. “Butterscotch Castle” by Captain & Tennille
Song Year: 1976
Though the song mentions butterscotch, licorice, and honey, it's not about actual food or candy. The butterscotch castle in the title is the narrator's home they share with their partner.
The song references this castle and mentions how it's a home full of love and sweet memories. Captain & Tennille had several hits in the 70s, usually about love, like their most famous song, ‘Love Will Keep Us Together.”
10. “Candy Store Rock” by Led Zeppelin
Song Year: 1976
Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant says 50s rock songs like those sung by Elvis Presley inspired him and other band members to write this song.
They wrote it in about an hour, and Plant sang it while in a wheelchair recovering from an accident. He compares himself to candy and the woman he's singing to as something sweet.
11. “Candy Girl” by New Edition
Song Year: 2010
New Edition were pioneers of a type of R&B and hip-hop known as New Jack Swing. This 1980s male group, together and as solo artists, released 18 singles that hit number one on the Billboard charts.
“Candy Girl” was the first single they released from their debut album and is one of their top ten biggest hits.
12. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard
Song Year: 1987
This song hit number two on the Billboard charts and became one of the most popular and enduring rock songs of the 1980s.
Like many songs about sweets, the tune contains sexual innuendos and references to sugar as a metaphor for love and sexual contact.
The track is on their 4th studio album, Hysteria, which suffered from long delays and was the first where Rick Allen played drums with one hand after losing an arm in an automobile accident.
13. “Candy Girl” by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons
Song Year: 1963
This group's first three singles in 1962 hit number one, making them instant stars. They released this song fourth, and though it didn't hit number one, it became a radio hit.
In this song, the candy girl is someone sweet the narrator found after searching for love for a long time.
Frankie Valli's unmistakable falsetto and the upbeat do-wop sound made this tune popular, though it never reached the heights of their number one hits like “Sherry” and “Big Girls Don't Cry.”
14. “Candy Man” by the Mary Jane Girls
Song Year: 1983
The Mary Jane Girls' career as a group was short-lived, lasting from 1983 to 1987, but they achieved enough success to earn an induction into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
This funky R&B tune has the narrator singing about a man she loves who treats her well and is sweet like candy.
15. “Sell Me Candy” by Rihanna
Song Year: 2007
Barbados-born Rihanna's career has earned her multiple music awards like Grammys and American Music Awards. She has over 30 top ten songs, with 14 of those hitting number one.
This song from her Good Girl Gone Bad album mentions candy, sugar, and getting spoiled by a candy man as a metaphor for love and desire.
16. “Sugar Walls” by Sheena Easton
Song Year: 1984
Grammy-winning Scottish singer Sheena Easton was one of the most popular British stars in the 1980s. She's the only artist to have a hit in the top five on all of Billboard's singles charts simultaneously.
“Sugar Walls” was one of those hits, reaching the top five on the R&B and dance chart. All the references to sugar and sweetness are bold sexual imagery in this song written by Prince, one of the great musical artists in the world.
The Parents' Music Resource Council listed it as part of their “Filthy Fifteen” while trying to censor and label explicit recordings.
17. “Raspberry Swirl” by Tori Amos
Song Year: 1998
The raspberry swirl in the song can mean candy or dessert, but the lyrics imply it's part of the female anatomy and a metaphor for genitalia.
This tune is one of the songs about candy with a definite sexual meaning.
The song has a funky, alternative sound. It encourages the listeners to pleasure the object of their affections by making her “raspberry swirl,” in what some interpret as code for oral sex or at least sexual pleasure.
18. “Sugar Mountain” by Neil Young
Song Year: 1977
Folk-rocker Neil Young wrote this song about his childhood in Winnipeg while feeling nostalgic on his 19th birthday.
Sugar Mountain is a metaphor for childhood and how you can't go back after reaching a certain age. The song mentions balloons, carnival barkers, and a fair, implying the sweet and fun parts of childhood that are hard to return to after growing up.
19. “Candy” by Cameo
Song Year: 1986
Funk band Cameo released their biggest hit, “Word Up!” in 1986, the same year as this song about someone sweet like candy.
The narrator sings about someone who affects every part of his life in a good way and compares their sweetness to things like chocolate, vanilla, gumdrops, flowers, and berries.
20. “The Candy Man” by Sammy Davis Jr.
Song Year: 1972
The 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory featured a wide-eyed Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, taking lucky children through his factory to sample the sweets and see the inner workings.
This tune is one of the songs about literal candy. The film featured several incredible and sometimes impossible sweets like Everlasting Gobstoppers, lickable wallpaper, and Fizzy Lifting Drinks. Some, like the Everlasting Gobstoppers, became real candy sold in stores.
The actor Aubrey Woods originally sang the song in the film in his character as a candy store owner. Soon after, singer, dancer, and actor Sammy Davis Jr. turned it into his only number one hit.
21. “Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows” by Lesley Gore
Song Year: 1963
Lesley Gore's claim to fame was “It's My Party,” a single released the same year as this tune.
The song compares the narrator's happiness when her love is near to wonderful and sweet things like sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.
Unlike many songs about love, the singer is unironically happy and doesn't use innuendo or sarcasm to hint that the happiness is false.
22. “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies
Song Year: 1969
The Archies are a virtual band made up of characters from the Archie Comics and the animated series The Archie Show from the 1960s.
Though the characters are fictional, musicians recorded the songs for the TV show and turned this pop song about a girl as sweet as sugar and candy into The Archies' biggest hit that many people will recognize today.
23. “I'm a Gummy Bear (The Gummy Bear Song)” by Gummibär
Song Year: 2007
Gummibär, a German virtual band, released this novelty dance song with a singer claiming to be a gummy bear in Hungary in 2007. It became so popular that it topped the Hungarian ringtones charts for eight months.
The original video on YouTube has over 2 billion views, and the song is available in over 25 languages.
24. “Candy” by Mandy Moore
Song Year: 1999
Pop singer Mandy Moore released “Candy” as the first single from her debut album So Real. The song achieved modest success by hitting 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album went on to be certified platinum.
Like many songs about candy, this one compares a lover to something sweet and candy-like the narrator craves.
Moore is well-known for providing the speaking and singing voice of Rapunzel in the 2010 Disney film Tangled.
25. “Sex and Candy” by Marcy Playground
Song Year: 1997
This song by alternative rock group Marcy Playground has a unique sound and cadence, and the lyrics lend themselves to many different interpretations.
John Wozniak says he wrote the song in about an hour and tried to come up with disco references that sounded interesting.
The song compares sex with something pleasant and has one of the best guitar hooks in songs about sweets.
26. “Candy Shop” by Madonna
Song Year: 2008
Madonna is one of the world's most famous and successful musical artists, often called the Queen of Pop. This song wasn't one of her biggest hits, but it's one of the tunes from the 2000s that saw her experimenting with tone and style.
“Candy Shop” is one of the many songs about candy that uses it as a metaphor for sex, love, and pleasure.
In it, she sings about her candy shop and the sweets she has to offer a lover with references to specific candies like Turkish delight and lollipops.
27. “Taffy” by Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
Song Year: 1995
Lisa Loeb's first single, “Stay (I Missed You),” hit number one before she even had a recording contract. The song appeared in the film Reality Bites and shot to the top of the charts.
Loeb went on to have a successful musical career with several albums, TV appearances, and albums for children, including a Grammy Award-winning children's album, Feel What U Feel, in 2018.
Songs about candy as a metaphor are common, but this one doesn't compare sweets to love or sex. Instead, the narrator sings about someone who lies constantly. They claim to get the truth out of him is as difficult as trying to pull taffy.
Top Songs About Candy, Final Thoughts
Songs about sweets often use sugar and candy as a metaphor for sex or love. The suggestive lyrics let the artists use innuendo to sing about things that otherwise wouldn't get radio play.
These songs about candy remind us of something pleasant and let us indulge in guilt-free sweets anytime. We hope you found a new favorite sexy or sweet song on this list.