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Sugar mice

"Sugar Mice"
Marillion sugarmice.jpg
Single by Marillion
from the album Clutching at Straws
A-side Sugar Mice
B-side Tux on
Released 13 July 1987
Format 7" single, 7" picture disc, 12" single, 12" picture disc, CD single
Recorded 1987
Genre Rock
Label EMI
Writer(s) Derek Dick, Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas
Producer(s) Chris Kimsey
Marillion singles chronology
"Incommunicado"
(1987)
"Sugar Mice"
(1987)
"Warm Wet Circles"
(1987)
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Sugar Mice is a song by the British neo-progressive rock band Marillion. It was the second single from their fourth studio album Clutching at Straws. Released on 13 July 1987, it peaked at number 22 in the UK Singles Chart, becoming the band's 8th top-thirty hit in a row. Outside the UK, it was released in France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, West Germany and (on Capitol Records) in the United States and Canada. A number of formats were available: 7" single, 7" picture disc (containing a fold-out sleeve with a poster), 12" single, 12" picture disc. 3,000 copies of a 5" CD single were produced that were exclusively sold at concerts.

A protest song which directly addresses the devastating effect unemployment can have on personal relationships, the track takes the form of a melancholic rock ballad with lyrics from the perspective of a British worker who emigrates to the USA to find a job, leaving behind his family. He ends up in despair, drinking in a hotel bar in Milwaukee and blaming the government for leaving him out of work. Lyricist Fish described the background as follows:

The first-person narrator sums up his feelings with the metaphor "We're just sugar mice in the rain", which lends the title to the song.

Performing it at the band's concert Live from Loreley in 1987, Fish dedicated it to "all the unemployed people in Europe today, to the romantics, to the dreamers and to those who still have hearts".

The 12" and 5" CD single featured an extended version of the title track, containing some extra music between the first and second verse.

The B-side, "Tux On", is a rock song that tells the story of a rising rock star who gradually loses touch with reality and finally ends up abusing drugs.


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