B-side "Way Down the Line" Recorded 1996 Length 1:55 | Released December 31, 1996 Genre Skate punk | |
Format Vinyl, cassette, and CD | ||
"All I Want" is a song by American punk rock group The Offspring. It is the tenth track on their fourth studio album Ixnay on the Hombre (1997) and was released as the first single from the album in December 1996. It reached No. 31 in the UK and No. 15 in Australia. In the US, it peaked at No. 13 on Modern Rock Tracks. The song also appears as the fifth track on their Greatest Hits (2005). The single was also (at 1:55) the shortest single to be released by the band.
Contents
Origin
The song was originally written by Dexter Holland as part of a (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) Bad Religion songwriting competition at Epitaph Records, under the title Protocol. The song's lyrics originally consisted of significantly complex vocabulary, like many Bad Religion songs. However, when Dexter offered to play it for Epitaph owner and Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, he was told to "play it on acoustic later or something." Dexter felt rejected and rewrote the song's lyrics to sound more like an Offspring song.
Music video
The band made a video for the song, which was directed by David Yow of The Jesus Lizard.
The video consisted of shots of the band playing and singing the song mixed with a young man seemingly rebelling against society. While the band is shown the video is often in psychedelic colors. The man takes his clothes off down to his jeans while running through his town. At the end of the video he arrives in a field, and falls in a puddle of mud. In between the shots of the band and the shots of the running man are old, black and white video clips from various situations, including a bicycle race, an airplane crashing into a barn, and a race car ploughing into a crowd.
As confirmed on the Complete Music Video Collection DVD, Buzz Osborne is the man wearing the mask while playing the piano.
DVD appearances
The music video also appears on the Complete Music Video Collection DVD. It was released in 2005.
Appearances in media
The song was featured in the video game Crazy Taxi as well as the computer game Jugular Street Luge Racing.