Date Rape (song)

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“Date Rape”
Single by Sublime
from the album 40 Oz. to Freedom
Released 1992
Format single
Recorded 1991-1992 at Mambo in Long Beach, California
Genre Punk/Ska
Length 3:37
Label Gasoline Alley/MCA
Producer Sublime
Sublime singles chronology
- "Date Rape"
(1995)
"What I Got"
(1996)

"Date Rape" is a song by Southern California band Sublime. It appears on the band's 1992 debut album, 40 Oz. to Freedom. It was first released as a single in 1995 when the famous Los Angeles radio station KROQ started playing it. "Date Rape" became the most requested song on the station.

Bradley Nowell explained, "I've never raped anyone as far as I can remember. We were at a party a long time ago and we were all talking about how bad date rape was. This guy was like, 'Date rape isn't so bad; if it wasn't for date rape I'd never get laid.' Everyone at the party was bummed out about it, but I was cracking up and I wrote a funny song about it."[citation needed]

Humorous in tone, the song ends with the victimizer being sent to prison and being raped by a larger inmate. It can therefore be seen as a cautionary anti-rape anthem, or as poetic justice, or revenge, as the man is subjected to sexual violence similar to that which he committed (similar to the Nirvana song Rape Me).

Although Date Rape is one of Sublime's most popular songs, it barely made it on their first CD. Bradley and the other members of the band thought of it as one of their worst songs. They insisted that it was a terrible song and were often reluctant to play it during live shows when fans screamed out requests for it.

Pornographic actor Ron Jeremy stars in the "Date Rape" music video. Jeremy plays both the judge at the rape trial and the "larger inmate" who rapes the man who sexually assaulted the female protagonist of the song. Ron Jeremy himself was referenced in the opening line of the Sublime song "Caress Me Down" which goes "Mucho Gusto, me llamo Bradley, I'm hornier than Ron Jeremy", and also in the unreleased song "89 Vision".

The song was covered by Fishbone on the 2005 Sublime tribute album entitled Look at All the Love We Found for which a music video was directed by Renee Tod and Josh Fischel (of the band Bargain Music). Josh is the director of the Sublime documentary Stories, Tales, Lies & Exaggerations.

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