What does Sugar mean?

System of a Down: Sugar Meaning

Tagged: Drugs [suggest]
Album cover for Sugar album cover

Song Released: 1998


Get "Sugar" on MP3: Get MP3 from iTunes

Sugar Lyrics

The kombucha mushroom people,
Sitting around all day,
Who can believe you,
Who can believe you,
Let your mother pray, (sugar)

(sugar)
I’m not there all the time you know
Some people, some people, some people,
Call it insane, yeah they...

  1. xXMiB1Xx
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    Jan 18th 2012 !⃝

    This song is about aspartame, not drugs..

  2. anonymous
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    Jan 6th 2012 !⃝

    This song has three meanings. This song is about aspartame, when I looked up Kombucha, it is usually mixed in drinks, and is thought to cuase boosts in health. This means that we all think we're perfectly healthy and we can eat what we want and it won't matter (like aspartame.)Another meaning is about all the corruption in the world, and no one is fixing it. We "sit around all day" while there domoestic violence "My girl, you know, she lashes out at me sometimes,
    And I just f*****g kick her." People need to carry guns to feel safe "I got a gun the other day from sako,
    It’s cute, small, fits right in my pocket" And some people just snap and murder a bunchn of people. "Just anger, I’ve killed everyone" And we just leave our "Mothers" to pray for everything to be fixed. Finally, we wander in circles through everday life. So whenever we think we know what we want to do, it turns out it's what we're already doing and it's just endless repitition. We don't know how to feel or what to say, so we just say f*** everything and we believe that just fixes it.

  3. anonymous
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    Jan 3rd 2012 !⃝

    "people sitting around" refers to a life without much work out and all, which leads to obesity and diabetes... then they begin using artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which risks their lives (Russian roulette) and leads to various other psychological problems...

  4. motherfuckeryeah
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    Sep 23rd 2011 !⃝

    all of you are stupid, this song IS about the kombucha drink, as when you make it yourself it is a russian roulette cuz its never 100% sure to be a good brew, you have to make a "Kombucha Mother" which feeds off of SUGAR, anyone who has ever made their own kombucha would totaly get this song. anyone who thinks its about drugs or anything else has done too many drugs and just dont know how to interpret a song.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  5. anonymous
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    Jul 7th 2011 !⃝

    "KOMBUCHA should NEVER be fermented with raw honey, Stevia, Xylitol, Lactose, High Fructose Corn Syrup or any artificial sweetener such as Erithritol, ASPERTAME, SUCRALOSE or Saccharin."

    On Wikipedia about the Kombucha Recipe

    Maybe it's make you crazy and you die :O

    Anyway there's many ways to view it.
    Aspertame is not good for the health and should not be mixed with Kombucha either.

    "...WHO can believe you
    WHO can believe you
    Let's your Mother pray"

    They know things that not everyone know and anyway no sheeps(Stupid ass corrupted people)would believe them. THat's what I think.

    Knowledge can make you crasy too and what is the song before... ;)

    Out of context(?), Do you know that Natural Almond (Non-Grilled) Contain Arsenic and can be poisonous. =P

    I'll end this text now X_X
    could be longer... Bye bye!

  6. anonymous
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    Jun 17th 2011 !⃝

    Aspartame is a silent killer commonly found in sweeteners labeled "sugar". It prove something so sweet can kill you, like the news. They sugar coat everything they say so we dont get scared or worrie, but by doing that we dont know the truth and its killing us.

    Theres my 2 cents.

  7. anonymous
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    May 15th 2011 !⃝

    This is not a song about aspartame or drugs; on the surface, it is a song about people blithely sucking down poison because it is sweetened. Aspartame symbolizes any poison that goes down sweetly: the news, for example. Sweetness is a distraction from what's really going on. Headline news doesn't show families devastated by our bombs. Rather, the news is sweetened with euphemism, strategic story placement and distracting feel-good fluff. This song is aimed at you and me. SUGAR!

  8. anonymous
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    May 5th 2011 !⃝

    Kombucha mushroom culture is developed with sugar..also, i think its trying to get at the additives in foods i.e a russian roullette meaning we are taking in foods with no idea of how or when they will eventually kill us.

    Also who can believe you, may refer to trying to warn/educate people of the dangerous effects of substances such as aspartame msg etc with it having little impact on them.

    Then I'm not sure about the end, I think it's his (serj's) on personal feeling/emphasis towards the topic he has wrote about???
    that's just my thoughts anyway.

  9. anonymous
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    Apr 1st 2011 !⃝

    The sentence I got a gun the other day from sako its cute and small fits right in my pocket sako is the brand of the guns the fave some kids who killed a bunch of people And the kombucha mushroom people refers to people who ate aspartame and got brain damage and stuff so the need "the cure it all kombucha shroom" and the no lights no music is for the ones who get seizures. From the aspartame who can be induced even by the shadow of leaves

  10. anonymous
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    Mar 23rd 2011 !⃝

    your all wrong...its about veitnam...the mushrrom perople are about the hats that the veinamiuese soldiers wore..."lies from the table cloth is about the "lies" in the news paper aka "table cloth"

  11. damagedpenguin
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    Mar 5th 2011 !⃝

    Many people think this is about the affects of aspartame or drugs, but I think it has a totally different meaning...

    (Mind you many of my ideas were slightly influenced by the music video, had I looked on here before seeing the music video I would probably agree with most of what's already here.)

    "The kombucha mushroom people, sitting around all day"
    News reporters sitting in front of the camera all day.

    "Who can believe you?"
    How do we know what they're (the media)telling us is true?

    "Let your mother pray"
    People are scared of what they hear or see and begin praying about it (this is mocking because they don't know the whole truth).

    "I play Russian roulette every day...with a bullet called life"
    people stupidly and shamelessly risking their lives

    "You know that every time I try to go where I really want to be it's already where I am, because I'm already dead"
    People not caring about their lives, having empty and pointless goals.

    "I got a gun the other day...it's cute, small, fits right in my pocket"
    People always feel the need to protect themselves (because of what they see on the news).

    "My girl you know she lashes out at me sometimes and I just f*cking kick her in the, ooh baby, she's okay"
    What people do behind closed doors, domestic abuse (in the music video, there's a police officer saying this, showing that someone who's portrayed as good and heroic really isn't any better than anyone else.

    "People are always chasing me down, trying to push my face to the ground when all they really want to do is suck out my motherf*cking brains"
    The news is everywhere, trying to scare people and bring them down (media/government brainwashing).

    "I sit in my desolate room, no lights, no music. Just anger! I killed everyone. I'm away forever, but I'm feeling better"
    Someone going crazy because he doesn't know what to believe (from what he sees on TV). The news is always very upsetting and about 'angry actions' ("just anger"). (Also, in the music video, this is spoken by someone who had been arrested by the FBI and held for questioning, we're hearing his side of the story instead knowing what he'd done from what we see on TV).

    "How do I feel? What do I say? In the end it all goes away"
    Don't know what to think or believe or how to respond. In the end it doesn't matter.

    Significance of title:
    Everything is sugar-coated, one-sided, and biased.

    Overall meaning of the song:
    People shouldn't believe everything they see on the news, everything is one-sided and everyone has secrets (as House says "Everybody lies"). People overreact to things they see and hear.

  12. anonymous
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    Jan 15th 2011 !⃝

    Sako is just an armenian name, it the diminutive of Sarkis.

  13. anonymous
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    Jan 15th 2011 !⃝

    Sugar, this sounds like the song you would think of on a MASSIVE sugar rush, hint hint, the kombucha mushroom people, either he really likes mushrooms or he's just going nuts from the sugar overdose, some songs just have simple or no meaning at all, why do people always read so far into songs?
    also, what else can explain the random switches between shouting and whispering
    'how do I feel? what do I say? FUCK YOU it all goes away' he's confused about the energy rush and can't handle it, but knows it will eventually go away

  14. anonymous
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    Oct 22nd 2010 !⃝

    I reckon that SoaD purposely writes the lyrics in a way that makes different interpretations possible. I have read similar meanings, they're all probably right.

  15. anonymous
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    Oct 6th 2010 !⃝

    That one person brought up a good point about the kombucha mushroom being used for a alleged cure in Asia for AIDS and cancer. The video for "Sugar" has a scene that flashes a couple of times that says "aspartame kills". Aspartame has gone through a few tests with laboratory rats that have led some scientists to draw the theory that aspartame is a cause of cancer.

    Take of this what you may; it's a mere piece of the meaning of the song and I'm short on time lol.




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