Many listeners thought it was a dog or a cat or something. Carl claims it was not a conscious thing to play it the way he did. It was just the way it came out. It felt good at the time and everybody seemed to like it.
The song itself was born in the parking lot of a Howard Johnson’s in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Bellamys were in town to do a radio interview on WIVK and the station was sending over a limo to pick them up. While they were waiting for the limo to arrive, they noticed a guy and a girl arguing in the parking lot.
They had the hood of her car up and were trying to get the car started. He said, “You know, what you need is a new car” and she snapped, “No, what I need is a sugar daddy.
Even if the car didn’t work, David was revved up from that spark and the resulting song reached #1 on Billboard’s country singles chart on April 5, 1980, marking the Bellamy Brothers’ second of ten chart-topping country hits, accompanying their #1 pop smash, “Let Your Love Flow,” in 1976
