"Lips Like Sugar" was released as the second single from
Echo & the Bunnymen, backed with "Rollercoaster". The song was a chart success, reaching number 36 in the UK, number 24 in Ireland, and number 43 in New Zealand. The song did not chart in the US, despite "how much attention it seemed to garner at the time of its initial release and how it’s so often held up as the band's
signature song in the States". The song largely saw success on college radio. Will Sergeant credited the song as a turning point in the band's success, saying "It just started started building. It was building naturally, and then we ended up doing the
Greek Theater in
Hollywood and the sheds and places like that. All of the sudden the crowd started changing - they'd become, like really young kids. You're thinking, Why? It was just weird. I'd be walking around with Les [Pattinson, bass] and Pete [de Freitas, drums] in the crowd and no one knew who we were. It all changed. It was just odd. Right around 'Lips Like Sugar,' it really changed." A British 12-inch single of the song was released, with "Lips Like Sugar" and "Rollercoaster" on the A-side, and a
cover version of
the Doors' "
People Are Strange" on the B-side, which was recorded for the soundtrack of the film
The Lost Boys and was released as a single in its own right the following year. The US 12-inch single had the same A-side as the British 12-inch single, with two other mixes of the title track on the B-side. A music video for the song, directed by
Anton Corbijn, features the band performing the song and ends with the band "transport[ing] from the sound studio to a garish set straight out of
Star Trek, where the Bunnymen are hunted by a couple of women in lurid space suits". The video is filmed in a "minimalist, grainy black-and-white" style typical of Corbijn's work. == Cover versions ==