Animal Nitrate

Butler wrote the opening riff in rehearsal in early 1992 and said he took inspiration from Smells Like Teen Spirit, secretly. Its working title was Dixon, after the theme of the BBC series Dixon of Dock Green. Anderson said the lyric was about a dark, murky world that ended up in the top ten. He had wanted Sleeping Pills as the third single, but Nude owner Saul Galpern insisted on Animal Nitrate. It was released on 22 February 1993 and peaked at number seven in the UK.

The band first played it at the 1992 Reading Festival and performed it at the 1993 Brit Awards a week before release, an appearance estimated to have reached about nine million homes. Pedro Romhanyi directed the video. Select ranked it the best single of 1993. NME placed it at number 33 in its 2014 list of the 500 greatest songs, and Caroline Sullivan of the Guardian called Butler's opening riff one of the most undeniable in pop. Basement covered it on their 2014 EP Further Sky, and the Libertines played it live in September 2015.