James frontman Tim Booth admits the band got “salty” about Sit Down at times.
The 65-year-old singer has revealed the group were frustrated at how their 1991 anthem “overshadowed” their other tracks.
Tim told Classic Pop magazine: “It was a phenomenon, we loved it.
“But then it started to overshadow all our other babies, like Ring The Bells or Sometimes, which we thought were equally important, beautiful pieces of music. So we got a bit salty around it at one point.
“But, when you get older, you realise there’s one song that kicks down the door and the others follow through. And Sit Down was that song. We started to realise how important it was for people. And now we totally own it.”
Sit Down has since become especially poignant for Booth after he sang the track alongside his dying father-in-law.
The She’s a Star artist recalled: “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 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.”
James have released the compilation album Nothing But Love and Booth was unafraid to tackle political themes on the new songs Wake Up, Superman and Hallelujah Anyhow – which both feature on the record.
He explained: “The world needs uplifting voices right now.
“I write songs that can be quite critical of certain beliefs or organisations. But at the same time, we are trying to unify people. There are moments, when we’re playing, when the whole crowd becomes one, and you think, ‘Holy s***’. It’s tangible. We’re aware that we’re part of something that’s bigger than us.”
Booth has suggested that James could earn more critical success if they take a long hiatus as Oasis and Pixies did.
The singer said: “I’m sure if we went away for 15 years and come back, like the Pixies or Oasis, there’d be a reappraisal.
“Because we’re continuously working artists, we can be taken for granted a bit.”
Tim also believes that the Come Home band are “hard to categorise” as an act.
He said: “We are hard to categorise as a band.
“I hate the term ‘indie band’. I think we’re more like the E Street Band. We’re a nine-piece band with a trumpet player, violin, cello, guitars… two amazing drummers. The idea is to leave behind an artistic legacy that people will eventually catch up on.”