Songfacts®:

• In our interview with Asher Roth, he explained that this is a very important song for him, and that there's no such thing as too many questions. Part of the reason he wrote this song, he says, was to encourage kids to never stop questioning things. He explains: "Not to delve too deep into that subject, because it's a sensitive subject on a lot of levels, but 'Sour Patch Kids' to me is, as I grow up and go through the motions and become a little bit more cognizant of life, I start to ask more questions. And I notice that as I start to ask more questions, people don't really like that. And then you had the presidency of George W. Bush, which kind of brought to light a lot of things as far as how things are set up. And with the Internet, it's kind of an equalizer as far as with knowledge. With Google and everything like that, you just have to type in a word and you can get some answers. So just growing up and becoming curious with how the world works. And I think they're just very vague about a lot of things. And like I said, without getting too deep into it, it's just kind of not everything is really perfect. And I just wanted, with 'Sour Patch Kids,' to let people know that not everything is exactly what it should be.
  
  It's a delicate subject, especially when you're talking to the press about it. I don't want it to come off as a conspiracy theorist or anything like that. It's not that at all. It's just a matter of American culture, if you will, or American society. And it's something - you just kind of have to choose your words very carefully – to me, it's just kind of capitalism. And it's very about our dollar. And when it becomes about money, and the obsession over money, and bigger, stronger, faster, a lot of more important stuff - just values and morals and ethics and just being a good person - kind of gets lost. And you see it firsthand in the music business. I mean, people just will do anything to get to the top, and that even means compromising their character. And not only do you see it in the music business, but then you start to see it in the structure of the country.
  
  I don't know anything, I really think that's the first thing to say is I don't know anything at all. I really don't know s--t. I just want to educate myself and make sure that I'm aware of what's going on, and I think having a conversation about it is the best thing. And that's kind of what 'Sour Patch Kids' is to me, is starting a conversation; not everything's perfect. What do you think? How do you feel? And that's really where I am on that. But that was very important for me to kind of talk about, because it's a subject, a topic of conversation that whenever we bring it up around friends and new people, there's always some very interesting stuff that people say.
  
  What was that guy that said, when Obama was giving his State of the Union address, and he goes, 'Oh, for a minute I forgot he was black,' or something like that. And it just spawned into this huge thing. Whenever you're dealing with politics and race and religion and these kind of pillars, it's very, very, very delicate. It's great conversation. But when it became about the money, when it became about the dollar, people forgot about all that. And it's bigger than 'Sour Patch Kids.' And I think that getting back to those topics of conversation, and just getting it out and talking about it is going to be huge. Rather than just sweeping it under the rug and saying 'whatever, let's talk about Balloon Boy.' I was in Rock Springs, I'm like, 'Why are they covering this?' I mean, there's so many other things to be talking about. And it's like they feed us these distractions. And television is just a start, I think. Television is a fabulous mechanism in order to kind of just distract us. And for me, I think music is one thing, it's not going anywhere. I think it's a very powerful tool that you can use.
  
  And the one thing that I was so scared of is coming off as preachy. And that's why, to me, stuff like 'Sour Patch Kids' and other things, it's just a way to pose it as a question. Ask a question rather than anything else. I try to tell kids all the time, 'Never stop asking questions. Never stop asking why.'"
• Asher admits to not having "a story. I wasn't shot 9 times, I don't have any of these stereotypical hip-hop stories. Hip-hop essentially derives from the struggle, but beyond all that there's a sense of enlightenment and uplifting that we need to get back to. And I think hip-hop was so strong about that. I think that 'Sour Patch Kids,' 'His Dream,' there's really very important points on Asleep In the Bread Aisle that kind of just got lost in the shuffle because of the popularity of 'I Love College.'"