Incredibly tight sound on this performance, especially with the Hammond Organ mixed in. I was 16 when this came out and I was floored. A truly timeless song.
Heard it on American Pie and learned it on the guitar and still play and sing it. This song fucking rocks man. Shame nobody else seems to know about it! This guy has serious energy and soul, and the jam is very unique. Hope wherever James is they’re rocking it.
In 89' they came out with SIT DOWN...By far my favorite song from them... WHAT FOR my Second favorite.... But LAID is An amazing song as well... STILL SOUNDS CLASS!! 👍
Thank you for taking the time to upload seemingly every late night musical performance from the era of the Clinton Administration! You obviously used high quality tapes, a great rig, and a good rendering program. I know what a complete pain in the butt it is to transfer old VHS tapes onto the computer, so thank you so much for your invaluable archive and for taking such good care of your tapes over the years...
My pleasure! The results are due to having had good advice at the time about getting a hi-fi stereo recorder [dual head], and the tapes varied, depending on price. Turns out that the best results were on the TDK tapes, IMO. After researching things a bit - and being limited by budget concerns - I ended up getting the Eye-TV Plus encoder for the analog to digital conversion, and then using Handbrake for the final compression, which is what you see here. Yes, real-time transfers take a long time, but it's the only way to "keep" my library now..... Hadn't give a thought about the fact that many of these performances were done during the Clinton years, until you mentioned it - I guess those were relatively happier times. Thanks, again, for the note of appreciation, and nice to know someone understands the work involved :)
i think it's about an unhealthy relationship. she's domineering, controlling, and bad for him in every way. but whenever he tries to break it off she makes him love her again, and he goes crazy when she's not around. the melody and the vocals just make it sound haunting and creepy and at the same time beautiful, just like the relationship the song describes.
…you should here the slow version he played. Theres a pause between “you are driving me crazy” and then. “When are you coming home?!” That shows how doomed he is!!!
It's one of those songs that's all chorus going round and around. Like 'I was made to love her' and 'I don't know why I love you' by Stevie Wonder, where the only place to go is more and more intense and unhinged.
![James - Laid [3-22-94]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
