Doin' Time

"Doin' Time" is based on the George and Ira Gershwin song "Summertime," from the 1935 musical Porgy & Bess. They share the same first line: "Summertime and the livin's easy."

"Doin' Time" is the final song on Sublime's eponymous third album. The album was their commercial breakthrough, but lead singer Brad Nowell died of a drug overdose shortly before it was released. The band broke up when he died, but drummer Bud Gaugh and bass player Eric Wilson stuck together, first with a new band called The Long Beach Dub Allstars, then with a new version of Sublime in 2009 with Rome Ramirez as lead singer. Nowell's estate took legal action to prevent them from using the name, so they called themselves Sublime With Rome. In 2023, Gaugh and Wilson played a show with Brad's son, Jakob Nowell, and in 2024 performed with him at Coachella using the Sublime name.

The phrase "Doin' Time" isn't in the lyric; it was originally but was replaced by "Summertime" at the last minute.