New Orleans Sugar

There's a new brass band song making the rounds around New Orleans at parades and weddings and at impromptu street corner jam sessions.  It's based on an old tune, a classic tune.  You can hear it from the bars on Frenchmen Street, and also from where the brass bands practice, in the music halls and neighborhood bars on Claiborne Avenue or A.P. Tureaud Avenue, or any number of back-a-town backstreet joints.

If you are of a certain age, when you hear the trumpets and the trombones and the tubas and the cornets and the drums play this song, you'll recognize the tune.  It's a classic.

If you are too young to know the original song, you'll still be tapping your toes and shimmying to the beat and the melody anyway.  This was a number one song in its day for many good reasons.  It is a pure pop confection of danceability and lighthearted bliss.  In New Orleans, we dance like nobody is watching.  We love happiness as much as the next person, but, perhaps, in New Orleans we treasure our happiness more.

Here is the song's original version:

The words for this newest, latest version of the song are similar to the original but different in important ways.  The lyrics have been pressed through the New Orleans filter.  They've become customized to ring more sweet and more true.  Welcome to The New Orleans State of Mind:

Sugar.
Ah, honey, honey.
New Orleans is my candy city
And it's got me wanting more...

Honey.
Ah, sugar, sugar.
New Orleans is a chocolate city
And it's got me wanting more....

I just can't believe the loveliness of loving New Orleans.
I just can't believe it's true.

When I spent a week in New Orleans, I knew how sweet a kiss can be.
I now know how sweet a kiss can be....

Like summer sunshine,
Pour New Orleans sweetness over me.
Pour that magic all over me.

Oh, New Orleans, pour a little sugar on it, honey.
Pour a little sugar on it, NOLA.
You make my life so sweet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LIFE IS GOOD IN NEW ORLEANS.

--- If you are looking for someplace to stay when you visit New Orleans, I happen to be an innkeeper.  I run the #1-ranked place to stay in New Orleans (it's been #1 since April 2014 according to TripAdvisor).  You could do a lot worse.  Believe me.  You can choose a lot worse.  If you are looking to experience authentic New Orleans off the usual tourist radar, you know where to find us: in the bright orange house with blue shutters on Esplanade Avenue: La Belle Esplanade.