I Want Candy by The Strangeloves (1965)
I Want Candy by The Bishops (May 11, 1979)
I Want Candy by Bow Wow Wow (1982)
I Want Candy by Mr. Al (1997)
I Want Candy by Good Charlotte (2001) --Second Hand Songs.

I Want Candy Song Facts and how:
--This was originally recorded in 1965 by a group called The Strangeloves. The group was actually 3 producers from New York who put this song together and made up a story about the band. They claimed to be from Australia, and said they were shepherds who got rich by crossbreeding sheep. The story made them sound much more exotic than the truth, and this hit #11 in the US.
When The Strangeloves recorded this, it started out as a cover of the song "Bo Diddley." They made it into an original with the help of songwriter Bert Berns, who wrote "Twist And Shout" as well as songs for The Drifters and Van Morrison. The distinctive Bo Diddley beat remained the focus of the song. hmmm could it be Bo Diddley that I am so familiar with?
--Bow Wow Wow was put together by Malcolm McLaren, who is famous for creating The Sex Pistols. The lead singer was Annabelle Lwin, who came to England from Burma when she was 5. When McLaren discovered her, she was 14 and working in a dry cleaner. She had the look he wanted, so he teamed her with former members of Adam And The Ants to form the band.
The photo used on the single was a recreation of Manet's 1863 painting "Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe" (Lunch on the Grass). The photo was taken when Annabelle Lwin was 15, which caused some controversy because she was naked. Malcolm McLaren wanted to use the photo on their first album, but Lwin's mother brought charges against him for exploiting a minor. For the US version of the cover, Lwin was wearing a dress in the photo.
--Bow Wow Wow came across this when producer Kenny Laguna was brought in to work with them. After talking Bow Wow Wow into recording this, Laguna realized he didn't have a copy of the song and didn't know the lyrics. There was no easy way to get the original song (this was before the Internet), so he called a friend who got him in touch with Richard Gottehrer, one of the producers who wrote and recorded this with The Strangeloves. Richard was cutting the song "Vacation" with The Go-Gos when Kenny called him. Kenny explained that he was in a bind and asked Richard if he remembered "I Want Candy," and fortunately, he remembered every word and helped Kenny through the song by singing the melody over the phone. Said Kenny, "I learned the song, then I took what I had gotten over the telephone and I recorded it on a little tape recorder. Then I went in the studio and taught it to the band Bow Wow Wow. We cut it and learned it right on the spot. I've never compared it to the original."
Laguna: "Richard's making a hit record with the Go-Go's, I'm in there making a hit record with Bow Wow Wow, and Joan Jett was playing the Sportatorium in Florida. That's when the women were exploding."
Laguna continued working with Joan Jett, but this was the last time he worked with Bow Wow Wow. Said Kenny, "I didn't get to do the next record, they were angry with me for bringing them a bubblegum song." (Thanks to Kenny Laguna for talking to us about this song. To learn more about Kenny, check out www.joanjett.com.) This turned out to be Bow Wow Wow's only hit. The next year, lead singer Annabella Lwin left for a solo career and the remaining members changed their name to Chiefs Of Relief.
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How did the song "Bo Diddley" come about? (ggl hit: Billy Boy Arnold Interview from the website of Richie Unterberger)
He was playing the hambone beat, as I said. He was singing, "Papa gonna buy his babe a diamond ring," and playing the hambone beat. And I suggested, why don't you say Bo Diddley? That's how that name came into the picture. 'Cause instead of saying papa gonna buy his babe a diamond," why don't you say, "Bo Diddley's gonna buy his babe a diamond ring." That's how that word, and that's how--I wrote some of the lyrics on the song, about three of the verses. And we made up on the same song on, just as me suggesting. Why don't you say Bo Diddley gonna buy his babe a diamond ring. Because there was a guy at Indiana Theater, which had Midnight Rambler shows on Saturday night. And his name was Bo Diddley, he was a comedian.
The first time I heard the word Bo Diddley, I was playing with him on the street in 1951. And the bass player said, "Hey Ellas, there go Bo Diddley," talking about this guy that played the Indiana Theater. And I thought that was the funniest word in my life, I just cracked up. I never forgot that name, Bo Diddley.

So we was doing this recording thing. He had the Bo Diddley type of rhythm, the hambone rhythm on a guitar. He was singing, "hey dirty mother"...and we had to make up a lyric, 'cause that kind of lyric wouldn't have went on the record. Leonard Chess wanted to know, what did Bo Diddley mean? He thought that was a derogatory word or something, 'cause he had never heard it. So I explained that it meant a comical, bow-legged type of a guy. We didn't know--we made the song up, as I said I wrote three of the verses. I was too young to capitalize on getting half the song. I didn't even pay any attention to that. When the record came out, to our surprise, the song was "Bo Diddley," and to our surprise, he named the artist Bo Diddley.
We figured that he might use the word Bo Diddley for the song, but we didn't know that he gonna call the artist Bo Diddley. We thought the record was gonna be Ellas McDaniels and the hipsters singing "Bo Diddley." When we saw the record, it was "Bo Diddley" by Bo Diddley. So that's how the word Bo Diddley and the song "Bo Diddley" came about. It was like a fluke, you know. It wasn't something that was made up in his hands.
It was a hit record because of the beat and the guitar. It ain't nothing but the hambone beat, actually. But he's playing it on the guitar with the tremolo. It had that organ effect, and the words was comical. The fact that it was called Bo Diddley might have helped.

How did you get set up with VJ as a solo artist?
I was much younger than Bo Diddley. He was about eight or nine years older than me. Leonard did say, he didn't like Little Walter when he first met Little Walter, he told me that. Leonard thought I was a cocky, smart-aleck type of kid. He told Bo he didn't like that harmonica player. Not the music, but my personality. So Bo Diddley told me...see we went there, both, to record. I wanted to record my stuff, he wanted to record his stuff. Bo told me, well, Leonard don't like you, maybe you better go to another record company. And I said okay. And that's why I went to VJ. When Leonard found out that I did, he say, you know, when I first met you, I didn't like you. When I first met Little Walter, I didn't like him. Meaning that he had changed his mind. But it was too late, 'cause I had recorded for VJ.
'Cause when we did the second Bo Diddley record, which was called "Diddley Daddy," that's how that came about. I said if you don't like me, heck, I'll go to another company. And I wrote a song called "Diddy Diddy Dum Dum," and that was supposed to be Bo Diddley's second record. We were playing [live], and I was singing and playing the harmonica like on "I Wish You Would," and Bo Diddley was just playing the guitar. Leonard was there, and he told Bo Diddley, "that's your next record." When they came by for me to go the studio, I was downtown at Universal recording for VJ. But they didn't know it. So Leonard told Bo Diddley, wait till we get Billy tomorrow, and then we'll record it. So when I came to the studio, Bo Diddley started singing and playing, and I was playing the harmonica. And Leonard said, wait a minute, let Billy sing it. And I said, I can't record, 'cause I already recorded for VJ. I had recorded "I Wish You Would," I had changed the lyric, but it had a similar beat and I was using the same harmonica thing. That's how I got from Chess to VJ.

---- Billy Boy Arnold (little Walter -?) His name isn't well known, but few Chicago blues artists have been as intimately involved with the city's blues scenes over the last five decades as Billy Boy Arnold has. One of the first Windy City blues singers who was actually born in Chicago...
Billy Boy Arnold Interview from the website of Richie Unterberger, author of books on music history and travel, and reviewer of too many albums to count for various books, publications, and databases.