Song · Ratt
“Lay it Down” by Ratt
From the EP The Video (1985)
“Lay it Down” by Ratt appears on 6 radio countdowns from 4 stations between 1990 and 2022. It was first released in 1985 on the EP The Video. Its best result is #228 on the Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #3,328 classic rock song of all time.
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Video from YouTube (RHINO). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube
Ratt cooked up "Lay It Down" on vacation, demoing it in Hawaii during a break from the Out of the Cellar tour, and in 1985 it led the charge for their second album, Invasion of Your Privacy, with Beau Hill producing for Atlantic. Stephen Pearcy, Juan Croucier, Robbin Crosby and Warren DeMartini share the writing, but Pearcy credits DeMartini's riff with sealing the deal the moment it walked in. The words, he says, are just somebody calling somebody else out.
The video goes for sweet nostalgia: a young Pearcy, played by Whit Hertford, blows out his birthday candles beside a little girl and glimpses his grown-up self fronting the band in a building that looks abandoned, singing to win her heart. It ends with her asking what he wished for.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Classic Rock
Hard Rock & Metal
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 228 | Z-Rock | Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990) | 1000 |
| 2002 | 597 | KISW | KISW Top 999 of All Time (2002) | 999 |
| 2019 | 468 | 106.7 WLLZ | WLLZ 500 (2019) | 500 |
| 2020 | 489 | 106.7 WLLZ | WLLZ 500 (2020) | 500 |
| 2021 | 473 | 106.7 WLLZ | WLLZ 500 (2021) | 500 |
| 2022 | 465 | 99.1 PLR | 99.1 PLR Big 500 (2022) | 500 |
Also listed as: Lay It Down.
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