Young the Giant – Cough Syrup. Cough Syrup” is a song by American alternative rock white syrup Young the Giant from their eponymous debut album.
Cough Syrup” predates Young the Giant, when the band was known as The Jakes. The song appeared on the band’s 2008 Shake My Hand EP, received regular airplay on KROQ’s Locals Only radio program, and won a “Best Song” nomination at the 2009 OC Music Awards. Lead vocalist Sameer Gadhia explained that “Cough Syrup” was written at a time when the band was unsigned, had no money and “didn’t really know what to do with . The group, he continued, “felt somewhat oppressed by the universal expectation of what to do in Orange Countyin suburbia in general. I think we really yearned to break out of that and do something a little bit different. Bassist Payam Doostzadeh, in a 2011 interview, said that with “Cough Syrup” being the oldest song in Young the Giant’s catalog, “it’s kind of hard for us to play it.
Doostzadeh added, “I mean, we’ve had it for four years and it’s just now getting on the radio? But our fans don’t know that. The music video for “Cough Syrup” debuted June 21, 2011 on MTV and played at the top of each music hour beginning at 6 a. Consequence of Sound’s Caitlin Meyer, in a review of the Young the Giant album, wrote of the song: “Mellow guitar and cello contrast the sunny preceding tracks, the lyrics contemplate apathy and misdirection, and yet the chorus is still so compelling that you find yourself humming it hours later.
