"I had this schoolboy-ish idea to sneak an overtly sexual song in with the framework of pop. I was amazed it got daytime radio play, considering the title is a play on amyl nitrite. To me, it's set in suburbia, in a council estate in Haywards Heath. I was brought up as a white, working-class English boy, and that's what I wrote about. If you're born in a dump you aspire to something better. It definitely has a veneer (of gay sex) but there's a very sad undertone," -he added- "People think about gay sex and never really think about it romantically. They see sadness, romance and loss as purely a hetrosexual thing. There's a definite domestic violence feel to 'Animal Nitrate.' But behind that there's a real sadness."
- Brett Anderson.
Androgyny vs LAD CULTURE IN THE 1990'S
ANIMAL NITRATE IN MIND.