Due to “Cane Shuga” being featured in the album teaser, the first preview of How to Be a Human Being that many fans heard was from this song.

This song is about the character in Speedos (or in a suit depending on the cover).

Cane Shuga is a slang term for cocaine; the character declares during the song that he wishes to stop taking it. He apparently “does cocaine in the bathroom secretly, all day, every day,” and is “a drug dealer for the elite.”

Judging by the band’s “mood board” used to create the character, it appears that the song’s working title was originally “Nostrand.” This graphic also reveals that the two verses of the song were swapped around, and each represents a different character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRO0HRddxUs

“This is the only track on the record that didn’t start with lyrics and vocal melody. It started with the beat and the heavy drums. I let the beat spin and wrote stream of consciousness lyrics through a vocoder for this one to try to capture a certain mentality you might have when you’re a bit fucked up. When you start speaking what seems like gibberish—but maybe that gibberish is actually quite revealing.” -Dave