Stay (Wasting Time)

Album: Before These Crowded Streets (1998)
Charted: 44
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Songfacts®:

  • A bittersweet recollection of carefree days full of laughter and dancing in the rain, Matthews describes this as a happy but "desperate-sounding" song.
  • This features backing vocals by The Lovely Ladies (Tawatha Agee, Cindy Myzell, and Brenda White King), a decision producer Steve Lillywhite regrets. DMB had never featured prominent female voices on their songs before, so Lillywhite wanted to give it a shot. "They still to me sound very much overdubbed and out of place," he noted in a 2018 interview with the podcast Records & Riffs.
  • This is the fifth track on the Before These Crowded Streets album, appearing as a bright spot between the darker tunes "Don't Drink The Water" and "Halloween." Lillywhite, who took charge of the track order on the albums he produced for DMB, says the placement was essential: "'Stay' needed to be put further in the album to bring you up a little bit."
  • Lillywhite says he got the idea for the saxophone hook from a small riff LeRoi Moore was playing during a jam session. "That was just one little part of his jamming, and I said, 'Roi, that's a hook! Let's build that and make it the hook of the song.'"
  • This peaked at #8 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.
  • This was used in the 2007 action movie The Kingdom, starring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner.

Comments: 1

  • Will from Myrtle BeachThis song was written when MDMA/ecstasy hit the US. Dave mentions "rolling" three times in the song. There are many references to water, which feels amazing while on MDMA. The lyrics about wanting to stay reminds me of never wanting to come down. Last, this was my favorite song to listen to/sing when I was taking ecstasy. If you were partying in the early 2000's, put yourself in that frame of mind and listen to the song...you tell me?
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