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February 2, 2024 1:34 PM

In the absolutely ruling Merle Haggard song "Big Time Annie's Square," he sings, "I'd heard about those sugar cubes before I ever came to find her there." What they hell does this mean?

I have wondered about this for years and then just remembered that AskMeFi now allows multiple questions per week.

Here are the full lyrics. What are these sugar cubes? Is Hag just an actual time traveler from the future bringing us news of Bjork?

I came back to find my Annie'd moved away
To some town in California close in something somewhere close to east LA
Don't think finding her was easy cause something sure had changed my Tulsa girl
But I came here to show my love and try to understand her crazy world

I was thrilled because she treated me with joy
And was glad she still remembered
Well enough to know someone she called her boy
And I've heard about those sugar cutes before I ever came to find her there
I was glad to be excepted even though I've known as big time Annie's square

I'm just big time Annie's leaning post someone she can turn to now and then
Annie says I'm feeble but Annie's friends don't question
The square John known as big time Annie's friend

Well sometimes I feel happy through and through
And I always find excuses for anything my Annie wants to do
We don't agree on nothin' but I'll be dangled if we don't make the pair
My friends call her hippie and her friends call me big time Annie's square

I'm just big time Annie's leaning post...

posted by kensington314 to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Response by poster: [Prays to the mods to change "they" to "the" in the post, swears on the Bible that he did make an effort at previewing and proofreading.]
posted by kensington314 at 1:35 PM on February 2, 2024

Best answer: LSD was served within sugar cubes - maybe a reference to her moving to California and getting involved in psychadelics? That seems to jive with the next line about him being a square.
posted by _DB_ at 1:38 PM on February 2, 2024 [11 favorites]

Best answer: Possibly a reference to LSD, which was sometimes dosed on top of sugar cubes.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 1:38 PM on February 2, 2024 [3 favorites]

L7
posted by clavdivs at 1:52 PM on February 2, 2024 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Oh shit, of course that's the lyric. That makes total sense. I should have been able to put that together myself.
posted by kensington314 at 2:02 PM on February 2, 2024

Yeah, acid sounds about right.

‘This old broken back of mine is all I’ve got to show’ — Merle Haggard, RIP:

"“Okie From Muskogee” got the attention and a TIME cover story; “Big Time Annie’s Square” is its funny forgotten baby brother. The sad sack who visits his Annie in California has already heard about those sugar cubes all them hippies are taking. He may try them — the twang in the guitar solo gets twangier at the idea."
posted by pracowity at 2:07 PM on February 2, 2024 [1 favorite]

("Was"? Do they not do that any more? Surely someone must…)
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:13 PM on February 2, 2024

Best answer: I'm an acid casualty who took it either in pill form or by chewing up the small squares of paper called blotter. (Note that article confuses those with 'tabs' which is short for tablets ie pills.) We heard about the LSD sugar cubes but never saw any, that method was from before our time (late 60s instead of early 70s). However, everybody knew you could ingest drugs via sugar cubes since that was how we were all administered the Sabin polio vaccine, a few years previously.
posted by Rash at 2:31 PM on February 2, 2024 [3 favorites]

FWIW, while it was definitely more a thing in the 60s, liquid LSD dispensed on sugar cubes and similar edible substances was (again) a thing in the 1990s, at least in and around the SF Bay area rave/rave-adjacent scene.

A lot of it dried up when Leonard Pickard got arrested in 2000. I don't know if the supply eventually recovered, as I don't really travel in LSD-adjacent circles so much anymore.
posted by toxic at 4:12 PM on February 2, 2024 [1 favorite]