Babylon

The second single from White Ladder came out on 12 July 1999 and was re-released on 19 June 2000, when it reached number five in Britain. It went to 57 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Billboard Triple-A chart, and was certified platinum by the BPI in January 2021. Gray said the imagery was what his life was like then, a young person in London going out all the time and getting a little lost, and that the line about letting go your heart and your head was him speaking to himself.

Polson said a car goes right past the house in the recording. When he edited the noise out the song sounded worse, so he put it back. Pitchfork called it a festival anthem disguised as a counterbalance to the monsters of Glastonbury. A remix, Babylon II, appears only on the United States version of the album. Kieran Evans directed the first video, in which Gray sings straight to camera while the shot pans across London at night. A second video mixes a performance with concert footage and street scenes from San Francisco.