Laid

This sexually charged '90s classic is about a relationship that is both destructive and addictive, going from a bed on fire with passionate love to a fight in the kitchen with knives and skewers. It's by a British band called James led by frontman Tim Booth, who wrote the song with their bass player, Jim Glennie. Booth's lyrics often explore the human condition via spirituality and sex. "Laid" is based on fragments of his real life that are piece together to create a beautiful mess of a story. Booth said he's interested in "What it means to be a man, at the mercy of your sexual desires."

James formed in 1982 and had a modest following in the UK when they released "Laid" as the title track to their fifth album in 1993. It ended up being a surprise breakthrough in America, where every college kid knew the song because it was always blasting out of bars, dorm rooms and college radio stations. But the band didn't think much of the song when they wrote it. It came out of a loose jam, and felt "too pretty," a fleeting 2:36 of what Tim Booth called disposable pop. Jim Glennie agreed, describing it as almost suspiciously simple; just the classic C–F–G progression looping all the way through. Still, as Glennie admitted in Uncut magazine, "Sometimes in music you should do the easy thing and enjoy it."

Booth had fragments of lyrics kicking around during the jam and fleshed them out afterward, stitching together a collage of fact, fiction and half-remembered emotional truths. This bed is on fire with passionate love The neighbors complain about the noises above The opening line sounds like tabloid confession, but Booth said it's mostly invented. Other lines come closer to home. Moved out of the house so you moved next door The lyric reflects a real-life arrangement with Booth's former partner, the mother of his son, after he relocated to Dunham Massey in Cheshire. "I was very happy because it meant we could bring up our son together," he told Uncut. "It was obviously weird as well." From there, the song gleefully spirals. "Dressed me up in women's clothes" was inspired by Booth's time working with dancer Gabrielle Roth, whose workshops encouraged participants to explore movement - and identity - in unconventional ways. The result was a sense of liberation that fed directly into the lyric's playful take on gender and desire. Other lines - including the more volatile imagery of knives and skewers - draw from heightened emotional experiences, filtered through the song's tongue-in-cheek tone. Booth essentially cram a whirlwind of obsessive, messy relationship moments into just over two minutes, figuring the mischievous lyric matched the song's breezy, unpretentious feel.