Lay Me Down (feat. Sublime With Rome)

This is a single from the special edition of Southern California reggae rockers Dirty Heads debut album, Any Port in a Storm. The band comprises frontman Jared Watson, guitarist/vocalist Dustin Bushnell (Duddy), percussionist Jon Olazabal, drummer Matt Ochoa and bassist David Foral. This song features Rome Ramirez of the group Sublime with Rome, who wrote it with Watson and Bushnell. Watson told us: "Rome had the 'lay me down' part, and then Duddy worked on some more words to it that night. I had written something totally different to 'Lay Me Down,' a little bit more lovey, but then we realized three dudes singing more of a love song doesn't work that well, and Duddy's idea was better. He had the first verse and the lyrics to the chorus. It was a Bonnie and Clyde western-style story. Once I got that it was a lot easier for me to write the second verse - he wrote the first verse about them getting caught and getting chased, and I wrote the second verse and the bridge about how they found their little paradise. So it's a story: the first verse they get caught, second verse, they're still running and there's bounties out for them, and then the bridge is they found their paradise in Mexico or wherever they were. Then we changed the lyrics on the out-chorus to, 'we found our place to stay again.'"

This song came together in a leisurely setting. Dustin Bushnell told us: "We were at my house in my backyard having a barbecue with our buddy Rome. We were just hanging out, just relaxing. We had some acoustic guitars and we just started jamming, just for fun."

The song was intended for the follow-up to Any Port in a Storm, but when their record company heard it, they wanted to get the song released as soon as possible. Added Bushnell: "We had a whole album that we did with producers and a label and all that stuff, and none of those songs were hitting. The one song that hit had nothing to do with the album; it was recorded in my back yard, just messing around, no producers or anything, recorded in one day - and it hits!"

The song was Dirty Heads first #1 on the Alternative Songs chart. The song's 10 week run at peak position established a new record for longest stint on to of the chart, surpassing the previous mark set in 1999 by Everlast's "What It's Like."