Songfacts®:

• According to Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz) in the Beastie Boys Book, this song is about "being thankful for the simple things: love and friendships and life. And dumb little objects that make us human."
• Beastie Boys were moving away from sampling when they recorded this song for their third album, Check Your Head. Instead of digging through crates looking for old records to loop, they did a lot of jam sessions with Ad-Rock on guitar, MCA (Adam Yauch) on bass, and Mike D (Michael Diamond) on drums. They also brought in a keyboard player, Mark Nishita, who could play Clavinet, organ, and Wurlitzer, which shows up prominently at the end of the song.
• The song is built on a bass line MCA came up with when he was learning the instrument. He played it through a Univox Super Fuzz distortion pedal and got a distinct sound. Using an 808 drum machine, he built up the song, which sat around for a few years until the group worked on it together for Check Your Head. They had trouble coming up with lyrics, so they put the track on cassette with some other unfinished songs and went on a road trip. Sure enough, inspiration struck when they left the studio and they came up with the right words.
• The group's roots as a hardcore band are evident on this track. Before they discovered sampling, they were a four-piece band from 1981-1984, using a live drummer (Kate Schellenbach) instead of a DJ.