Songfacts®:

• The song was released 3 times over a 10 year period. The original 7-minute version was released in 1989 by Rough Trade Records. However the song stalled at #77 in the UK Chart. Over the next 2 years James became part of the thriving Madchester music scene, and a shortened version of this song regularly causing clubbers to sit down when it was played. The single was re-released this time on Fontana in 1991 when it became a hit. In 1998 it was remixed by Apollo 440 as part of the promotion for the 2002 Commonwealth Games launch in Manchester.
• This was written in Autumn 1988 by the band's lead singer Tim Booth during a difficult time when he was feeling lonely and depressed. He was encouraged by a book by Doris Lessing and by Patti Smith's music, which helped him to realize he wasn't on his own feeling the way he did. The song was a thank you to them. In an interview with The Daily Record in June 2004, Booth said, "Sit Down is about me feeling so alone in my 20s and reading books by a writer called Doris Lessing which made me realize I wasn't. It was about being awake at 4am and having no-one to talk to."
• James spent three weeks with this song at #2 sitting behind Chesney Hawkes' "The One And Only."
• When Patti Smith was appointed the 2005 Meltdown Festival director at London's South Bank, among the artists she invited to perform was Tim Booth, who sang this for the first time in years. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for all above
• This was released on a repacked version of James' 1990 debut album Gold Mother. The only differences between the two albums were the inclusion of this song and "Lose Control" along with a new mix of "Come Home." To avoid a backlash, Fontana arranged a new for old swap deal, allowing buyers to trade in their original versions for the new one. It is common practice these days for a new 'special edition' version of a successful album, with two or three additional tracks, to be released a year or two after the original one. Sadly it seems record labels now believe it to be responsible marketing to persuade consumers to pay for virtually the same product twice.
• A trailer for Game of Thrones Season 7 used an eerie remix of this track to soundtrack shots of Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow preparing for battle as they fight for the Iron Throne. Tim Booth joked on social media that he hoped the band was invited to play at Daenerys' coronation.
• Coldplay performed "Sit Down" at the One Love Manchester benefit concert for the victims of the 2017 terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena.
• With its themes of compassion, communication and communion, "Sit Down" seemed custom built for the COVID-era. Yet James treat the song frugally, wary of cheapening it or letting the track define them.
  
  "'Sit Down' is our biggest hit in Britain, but it isn't worldwide," Booth told Uncut magazine in 2021. "We play it when we can play it with passion, because for us the whole gig is more important than one song. Having said that, I know it has been a really important song for people in lockdown. It comforts people, so I could see us entering a period coming out of lockdown where we'll want that sense of unity and connection."
• The song took on new meaning for Booth after he sang the track alongside his dying father-in-law. "When my father-in-law was dying of Covid, we had our last moment with him on FaceTime, with a nurse holding the camera up for him," he recalled to Classic Pop magazine. "He could barely talk, this beautiful man, but he asked me to sing 'Sit Down.' So I sang 'Sit Down.' And it changed my relationship to that song."