Lead singer John Wozniak was inspired to put in writing the track after a girl advised him that a room smelled like "sex and sweet." The track's summary lyrics discuss with the disco period and embody hippie lingo. The Marcy Playground album drew little notice until a radio station in San Diego started enjoying "Sex and Candy" and at the same time the music was chosen by filmmaker Morgan J. Freeman for the soundtrack of his film Hurricane Streets. In 1997, Wozniak mentioned that "Sex and Candy" is an unorthodox love track; later, he mentioned he does not know what the track means. Wozniak said that, while he was pleased that the monitor "became a quintessential '90s moment," he was flabbergasted and overwhelmed by its success, adding that he wouldn't need to supply one other hit song of comparable recognition. Commercially, "Sex and Candy" peaked at quantity 2 on the Canadian RPM 100 Hit Tracks chart, quantity 8 on the US Billboard Hot one hundred and number 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, staying there for a then-document-setting 15 weeks. 2 on the Canadian one hundred Hit Tracks chart. In 2023, for the 35th anniversary of the trendy Rock Tracks chart (which by then had been renamed to Alternative Airplay), Billboard ranked "Sex and Candy" as the 17th-most successful music within the chart's history.
