About The Song
“In Bed” is a Three Dog Night deep cut that traces back to Motown’s attempt to build a rock brand. The song was written by Tom Baird with Wes and Lynn Henderson, and it first showed up on Rare Earth’s album Get Ready, released on September 30, 1969—right as Motown was rolling out Rare Earth Records as its rock-focused label. On that LP, “In Bed” sits among mostly covers, which makes it stand out as a short, original statement tucked between bigger, more famous performances.
Tom Baird’s name is part of the story. He worked inside Motown’s ecosystem as a musician, arranger, and producer across multiple projects, and people who follow that era often mention how quickly he moved between roles—playing keys, shaping arrangements, and helping finish records. His career also has a hard stop: he died young in a drowning/boating accident off the California coast in the mid-1970s, which has made his credits feel like a snapshot of talent that didn’t get the long run.
When Three Dog Night picked up “In Bed,” they dropped it into a very different world: their 1972 album Seven Separate Fools, recorded at American Recording Co. in Studio City with producer Richard Podolor. The album was a commercial peak for them, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard 200, and it’s remembered not just for the hits but for how wide the song selection is—Randy Newman one moment, Allen Toussaint the next, and then this Motown-rooted piece sliding in late on the record.
The track is listed as song eight on the original album sequence, and the credits point to Cory Wells as the lead vocalist for that cut. That matters because Wells was usually the band’s “edge” voice—when a Three Dog Night track needed grit or a more direct delivery, he was often the one up front. Here, his tone fits the song’s blunt idea: life’s biggest moments keep circling back to the same place.
You can hear why the song traveled. It isn’t built around romance or a clever plot; it’s built around a single, unsettling observation. The lyric’s most quoted line—“In bed we laugh, in bed we cry… born in bed… in bed we die”—lands like a summary rather than a confession, which is why it reads differently depending on who’s singing it. Rare Earth framed it inside Motown’s rock ambition; Three Dog Night framed it as late-album realism.
On Seven Separate Fools, “In Bed” also acts like a pacing move. The record’s front half is packed with familiar radio energy, but by the time you reach this track you’re in the album’s deeper lane, right before “Freedom for the Stallion.” It’s one of those placements that feels intentional: a short, sobering song used as a bridge into heavier subject matter.
It never became a single, and it didn’t need to. “In Bed” survives as an example of what Three Dog Night could do when they weren’t chasing the obvious hook—spot a song with a strong core, lift it cleanly, and let the vocal character do the work. And in this case, the songwriter trail behind it—from Motown’s rock label to a top-charting Dunhill album—makes the recording even more worth revisiting.
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Lyric
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die,
As life goes on and time goes by
Born in bed, in bed we die.
Woman becomes a tree of life,
A cycle once more to begin,
Through wisdom gained in ages past
She is the start and end.
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die,
As life goes on and time goes by
Born in bed, in bed we die.
Innocent a child is born a being with no past,
Then in his eyes a fear takes shape,
A fear I feel will last.
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die,
As life goes on and time goes by
Born in bed, in bed we die.
In fear of love we fear of life,
A fear of living life alone,
When love is found a fear is past
And her life becomes your own.
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die,
As life goes on and time goes by
Born in bed, in bed we die.
In bed we cry, in bed we’re born and die.
In bed we cry, in bed we’re born and die.
In bed we cry, in bed we’re born and die.
In bed we cry, in bed we’re born and die.
In bed we cry, in bed we’re born and die.
In bed we cry, in bed we’re born and die.