1994Released
3:17

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Come Out and Play. By Songfacts®.

This song is about gang and gun violence in schools, and was the breakthrough hit for The Offspring. In a Rolling Stone interview, lead singer Dexter Holland recalled writing the song: "Back then I was a grad student and I was commuting to school everyday in a s--tty car, driving through East LA Gangland central. I was there the day of the LA riots. So I was very aware of that part of the world, and a lot of that gun stuff came out in songs like 'Come Out And Play.' But there was also some humor to it, like with 'Bad Habit.' There was a lot of freeway violence and road-rage at that time. And my car was so s--tty that people used to literally throw things at me on the freeway because I wasn't going fast enough. So I decided to write a song about it."

This song was written after a trip to the Middle East. This is what inspired frontman Dexter Holland to write the catchy guitar riff.

The phrase, "Gotta keep 'em separated" came from when Holland was in medical school. At the time, the band was unsure of how to tie the parts of the song together. One day, Holland was experimenting with bacteria in vials. He left the vials of bacteria in a room to let them cool down, came back after an hour or so, and noticed that the bacteria were still warm because the two samples were interacting with each other because the vials were close to each other. Dexter thought to himself, "I gotta keep 'em separated" and decided to use it to tie the new song together.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Come Out and Play.
GKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
158BPM

Album

The album Come Out and Play is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Come Out and Play.
Epitaph
1994 Epitaph
1994 Epitaph

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