Songfacts®:

• This was written by songwriting partners Ekundayo Paris and Nelson Pigford. The pair had parted ways but reunited when Paris came up with the musical idea for the tune. He met up with Pigford at his Hollywood residence, where they brainstormed lyrical possibilities. Paris told Billboard: "We both started bouncing ideas, trying to get something uplifting, something positive, something to bring two people together and take it to the ultimate." The song, Barry White's first Top 10 hit since 1974's " What Am I Gonna Do With You," finds the Godfather of Bedroom Soul in seduction mode with a girl he doesn't want to lose.
• Paris and Pigford didn't have a particular singer in mind when they wrote this. They landed Barry White by chance when they ran into Billy Page, the brother of White's arranger Gene Page, and heard White was looking for new material.
• White brought the demo with him on tour and played it for the first time at a hotel in France. He was the only one who took the song seriously. "Everybody in my crew was going up and down the hall laughing at that song," he recalled to Billboard. "I said, 'This is a smash, man!'" At least, it was a smash when he was done with it. Once the naysayers heard the instrumental track, they conceded it was a surefire hit.
  
  "That's when everyone knows we got one," White said. "It's there before they hear the lyric, and they say, 'You shouldn't put lyrics on that, B.W., that's an instrumental!' That's when I know I got the stuff. It's gotta be great as music before anybody does anything else to it."
• This was White's only Top 10 hit that didn't include him as a co-writer.
• This was White's longest-running #1 hit on the R&B chart, where it reigned for five weeks.
• Mary J. Blige sampled this on her 1994 song "You Bring Me Joy." Robbie Williams also heavily sampled the tune on his 2000 hit "Rock DJ."
• The title is grammatically incorrect. It should be "It's Ecstasy When You Lie Down Next to Me." In the present tense, lay requires a direct object, while lie does not. In other words, you lie down to take a nap with Barry, but you lay down a blanket on the bed.
• This was used in the movies Summer Of Sam (1999) and Johnson Family Vacation (2004).