Sit Down

There are three versions. The original was released on Rough Trade on June 19, 1989 (CD June 26), runs 8:39, with "Goin' Away", "Sound Investment" and "Sky Is Falling" on the other tracks, and reached 77 in the UK. Fontana's re-recording came out on March 18, 1991 at 4:05, with "Tonight" and a live "Sit Down" recorded at G-Mex among the B-sides, and peaked at 2 for three weeks behind Chesney Hawkes's "The One and Only", platinum in the UK and 20th on the 1991 year-end list. An Apollo 440 remix, "Sit Down '98", reached 7 in November 1998. Gott told the Guardian in 2014 that the label insisted on re-recording it with Gil Norton, and Booth that the original is sensitive and vulnerable but they needed a Norton to make them hammer it out. Wikipedia lists Steve Power as the 1991 producer, which conflicts with Gott and Uncut, who name Norton. Uncut's Andrew Mueller, in 2007, called the original the most straightforward yet populist singalong, and Norton's version a thundering stadium anthem.

Booth told the Daily Record in 2004 that it was about feeling so alone in his twenties, and the band said in 2019 it was not written about Patti Smith. The 1989 video, directed by Ed Barton, had Booth in a kaftan on white, and the Musicians' Union banned it for two weeks because Glennie played drums. John Peel placed it eighth in his 1989 Festive Fifty, and a 2013 BBC Radio 2 poll ranked it fourth among the greatest tracks to miss UK number 1. Booth sang it with Peter Kay for Red Nose Day in March 2013, Coldplay played it at One Love Manchester on June 4, 2017, and Liverpool fans adapted it as a chant for Mohamed Salah. Setlist.fm lists 589 plays, the first at Legends in Warrington on October 5, 1988. We do not know which version our upload is.