Slide It In by Whitesnake (1984)

Slide It In is the title track of the album that broke Whitesnake in America, three years before the self-titled record made them enormous. The riff is a strut, the chorus is a command, and Coverdale sings it in what he has described as the register of a teenager with a dirty magazine, which is accurate and, from a man then in his thirties, refreshingly honest about his reading habits.

The album reached number nine in Britain and number 40 in the United States and is certified two times Platinum there. Asked about the title over the years, Coverdale has called it anatomically conversant and, when pressed, insisted that it is not about bananas. Both statements are true. The song has stayed in the live set ever since, because a chorus that short with a meaning that clear needs no rehearsal and no explanation.

Its afterlife is the band's name. Whitesnake made a career of being named after the thing, and Slide It In is the song where they stopped pretending the "snake" was a snake. On a list with a "tube snake" and an "anaconda", it is the entry that skipped the animal and went straight to the verb.