Adam's Song
"Adam's Song" is a song recorded by the American rock band Blink-182 for their third studio album, Enema of the State. It was released as the third and final single from Enema of the State in March 2000, through MCA Records. "Adam's Song" shares writing credits between the band's guitarist Tom DeLonge and bassist Mark Hoppus, but Hoppus was the primary composer of the song. The track contains themes of suicide, depression and loneliness. It incorporates a piano in its bridge section and was regarded as one of the most serious songs the band had written to that point.
Hoppus was inspired by the loneliness he experienced while on tour; while his bandmates had significant others to return home to, he was single. He was also influenced by a teen suicide letter he read in a magazine. The song takes the form of a suicide note, and contains lyrical allusions to the Nirvana song "Come as You Are". "Adam's Song" was one of the last songs to be written and recorded for Enema of the State, and it was nearly left off the album. Though Hoppus worried the subject matter was too depressing, his bandmates were receptive to its message. The song was produced by Jerry Finn.
"Adam's Song" peaked at number two on the US Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart; it was also a top 25 hit in Canada and Italy, but did not replicate its success on other charts. It received praise from music critics, who considered it a change of pace from the trio's more lighthearted singles. The single's music video, a hit on MTV, was directed by Liz Friedlander. Though the song was intended to inspire hope to those struggling with depression, it encountered controversy when a student survivor of Columbine High School died by suicide with the track playing on repeat in 2000.
Background
Blink-182 first rose to prominence in the late 1990s with their high-energy onstage hijinks and peppy pop-punk sound. In 1997, they released their second album Dude Ranch, which, with its anthem "Dammit", helped the band break through to a mainstream audience. Blink were among the first groups to play Warped Tour, a traveling exhibition darting across America bringing skateboarding and punk culture to the masses. While they had only played select dates on the previous year’s outing, the band were scheduled for every date on the 1997 version, on top of other tour dates around the world. This exhausting schedule exacerbated personal tensions between the trio.The tours could be exhilarating but lonely for the members of the band: "When we did our longest tour stretch, it was right when I started dating my ," recalled vocalist/guitarist Tom DeLonge. "We were all new and in love, and I had to leave. It was just, 'Hey, I'll see you in nine months.' It was really hard." Bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus, meanwhile, had a different outlook—while his bandmates returned home to long-term partners, he was single. "I was lonely on tour, but then I got home and it didn't matter because there was nothing there for me anyway," he confided to Rolling Stone in 2000. These feelings were compounded with the fact that the band were reaching professional highs—by 1998, Dude Ranch had gone gold and the band were on the verge of stardom. It made it doubly complicated — while struggling with depression, Hoppus felt as though he had "too much good fortune to complain about anything."
Settling down after a long tour could be abrupt, and emotionally jarring. Hoppus describes this malaise in a passage from his 2025 memoir:
Writing and development
The development of "Adam's Song" came quickly and privately for Hoppus. He wrote the tune on acoustic guitar in the living room of his first home, scribbling its lyrics on hotel stationery from San Francisco's Hotel Richelieu. At the time, he characterized himself as "deeply depressed," and struggling with suicidal ideation. The song begins with the narrator contemplating suicide with the lyrics "I never thought I'd die alone." The lyrics continue: "I'm too depressed to go on / You'll be sorry when I'm gone." Some lyrics deal directly with his feelings of post-tour isolation: the couplet "I couldn't wait til I got home/To pass the time in my room alone" originally ended "to get off the plane alone." Other lyrics have more visceral, personal connections for him. The line "Remember the time that I spilled the cup / of apple juice in the hall" stems from his childhood memories. As a boy, he once overheard his parents arguing behind closed doors, and while listening, accidentally knocked over a cup of juice he had been drinking—revealing his presence and that he had been eavesdropping. "Adam’s Song" also contains an allusion to Nirvana's “Come as You Are". Whereas Nirvana’s lyric reads, "Take your time, hurry up, the choice is yours, don’t be late," Blink-182’s song echoes it with the line, "I took my time, I hurried up, the choice was mine, I didn't think enough."Additionally, the song drew inspiration from a magazine article Hoppus had read and found harrowing, about a student who had killed himself and left a note for his parents. Online rumors purported that the song was inspired by a friend from Hoppus' high school years who took his own life, or a play titled Adam's Letter that has the same focus, but was not written until years after the song's release. John Cosper, the writer behind Adam's Letter, said, "the naming of the central character was a coincidence. The name goes back to the original script; I had no knowledge of Blink-182 or their music at that time." In his memoir Can I Say, drummer Travis Barker wrote that the song's title was taken from a "sketch on Mr. Show about a band that writes a song with that name encouraging one particular fan to kill himself." David Cross, co-creator of Mr. Show, confirmed this, commenting, "They were fans of the show and that was a knowing tribute that I thought was pretty cool."
Altogether, Hoppus viewed "Adam's Song" as a creative breakthrough. Writing it helped him overcome coming to grips with the fact that he struggled with depression and anxiety, and perhaps always had. He also felt something otherworldly about its creation, feeling as though he had leveled up in songwriting from nowhere: " came together like a dream. Lightning in a bottle, a creation that felt beyond my ability as an artist. One of those rare moments where the song was always there waiting for me."
Recording and production
"Adam's Song" was among the last tracks composed and recorded for Enema of the State, and was nearly absent from the final album. The band was halfway finished with recording when Hoppus developed the idea. Though he worried it was "a bit too far and depressing for what we were trying to do," his bandmates were receptive towards the idea. "I remember the day I played for Tom and Travis, and they were like, 'Wow, that's a pretty heavy song. It's really good,'" he said in 2000. At the same time, the song stands in contrast to the album's otherwise high-energy hijinks and lighthearted tone: "It felt weird to have an album full of youthful exuberance and chicks and parties with one song thrown in that makes you want to call a hotline," Hoppus joked.Hoppus procrastinated on recording vocals for the song throughout much of the recording process of the album, and he waited until everything else was nearly complete to finally get around to singing the part. He recalled tracking the part while wearing sunglasses indoors, joking with producer Jerry Finn about Offspring singer Dexter Holland’s frequent use of shades. Although vocals would usually take many alternate takes to complete, Hoppus completed much of the vocal track for "Adam's Song" in a single take. "It's in a pretty high register for me, so I just blasted it out one night after dinner. That's, like, 90 percent of what's on the final track," he told Kerrang!. The idea to include piano in the track came without much forethought; "We realized, 'Well, this part here could sound rad if we put piano in here.' So we tried it out, and it sounded rad," said Hoppus. The piano was performed by session musician Roger Joseph Manning, Jr., best known for his work with Beck.
Composition
"Adam's Song" was a departure from the content of the band's previous singles, in favor of a slower tempo and more contemplative lyrics. Brian Wallace of MTV wrote that Blink-182 "explores new ground on "Adam's Song," setting aside their normal pop-punk punch for a more emo-influenced approach." While other songs by the band are bracingly fast, Stereogum contributor Jeff Yeager said the song had more in common with the Cure, another of the trio's primary influences. The song is an emo, pop punk, and alternative rock track composed in the key of C major and is set in time signature of common time with a tempo of 136 beats per minute. Hoppus' vocal range spans from G3 to G4.Barker's drum track was labeled by Drummerworld as "one of the most creative beats of his career," and mainly consists of the same basic beat repeated in sections throughout the verses. The first measure begins with the kick drum and splash cymbal playing on the downbeat, followed by a hit on the bell of the ride cymbal on the "and" of beat two, preceding an open hi-hat that rings out for a full count on beat three. "The kick, snare, and floor tom are all hit simultaneously on beat four, followed by floor tom hits on the last two sixteenth-note triplets of beat four." The snare is hit on beats two and four, respectively. The song "gradually builds to a powerful, piano-laden crescendo," and the song's final chorus and conclusion take a more uplifting view of the world: "Tomorrow holds such better days / Days when I can still feel alive/ When I can't wait to get outside." DeLonge noted that over six guitar parts were recorded for the "gigantic, sad" choruses, but upon mixing, only four were used. "The extra ones didn't really do anything besides make it a little more unclear what was going on."