“Sweat (A La La La La Long)” by Inner Circle

All logic would imply that “Sweat (A La La La La Long)” is a bedroom fun song, and that’s not to say that the lyrics, comprehensively speaking, actually read logically. Well actually, digging a little bit deeper, what it appears is transpiring is that the vocalist spies a girl in a certain venue whom he strongly attracted to. He is so attracted to this pretty girl that he proceeds to approach her. 

You can view the lyrics, alternate interprations and sheet music for Inner Circle's Sweat (A La La La La Long) at Lyrics.org.

And this is where the confusion may come in, as in, regardless of how things may sound on the surface, it doesn’t appear that he’s having sex with her. Rather, while conversing and, we can safely say, trying to get into her pants, the singer is fantasizing about the act of sex with the addressee. Beyond that, not only is he vividly envisioning what he will do to her but also relaying those visions directly to the addressee.

That latter part of that analysis is very important to keep in mind because, all jokes aside, the lyrics of this piece might come off as being a bit rapey. Or as relayed by the vocalist, even after he’s sweated homegirl out, if she cries out, his response would be to “push it some more”.

But then again, if you look at it from another angle, the said crying could be one brought on by pure pleasure.

Takeaway

So to reiterate, within the context of the featured narrative this is a desire he is stating to her beforehand, during the act of solicitation, not while they are actually doing it and she’s crying out. Or put more into layman’s terms, here we are dealing with a guy who is telling a potential sex partner that, if granted the opportunity, he’s going to bonk her really hard. And apparently the reason he is doing so is because he’s under the impression that this is something she wants to hear/do.

And truthfully, a lot of that gets lost under the very innocent-sounding “a la la la la long” melody of the hook. But at the same time, this isn’t one of those songs where we can say that its mainstream acceptance is due to cleverly pulling a veil over the eyes of censors, because the “push it push it” part is also quite clear. 

So again, this can very much be classified as a standard sex song, in a way. But unlike most others which fall into this category, it also sounds quite sweet.

"Sweat (A La La La La Long)" Lyrics

Facts about “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”

Inner Circle is a reggae band, hailing from Jamaica itself, that has actually been around since the late 1960s. Their own discography dates back to the early 1970s, but by the looks of things it wasn’t until the 1990s when the group really hit their stride as far as the music industry is concerned. And their signature song, “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”, is from that era, a track which hails from (the international version of Inner Circle’s 12th (and most-successful) studio album, 1992’s “Bad to the Bone”.

It also appears that the success of “Sweat” was the main impetus being Inner Circle reissuing “Bad to the Bone” in the US, under the title “Bad Boys”, this time making this particular song the project’s leadoff track, as well as an official single. And it was released as such, through Warner Records, on 30 April 1993.

Two of the 1968 co-founders of Inner Circles siblings Roger and Ian Lewis, who are both vocalists/guitarists and still down with the act to this day. Keyboardist/vocalist Bernard “Touter” Harvey and drummer Lancelot Hall, who also were around when this track was dropped, are still involved and members of the band. 

It is the Lewis brothers who wrote “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”. They also co-produced it, in this regard regard working alongside Touter Harvey.

Shakira reportedly sampled this song on a track she dropped in 2020 title “Me Gusta”.

Sweat (A La La La La Long)

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