Editing Adam's Song (section)

==Background==
{{Quote box |width=30em |align=left | quote = Tom and Scott always had girlfriends waiting back home, so they had something to look forward to at the end of the tour. But I didn't, so it was always like, I was lonely on tour, but then I got home and it didn't matter because there was nothing there for me anyway. | source =—[[Mark Hoppus]], reflecting on writing "Adam's Song"<ref name="rstruth"/>}}
Beginning in the summer of 1997, Blink-182 would enter an extended period of touring to support their second studio album, ''[[Dude Ranch (album)|Dude Ranch]]''. The group had played a handful of dates on the [[List of Warped Tour lineups by year|Vans Warped Tour 1996]], a lifestyle tour promoting skateboarding and [[punk rock]] music. However, upon ''Dude Ranch''{{'s}} release and popularity, Blink-182 would play every date of the 1997 tour worldwide with the bands [[NOFX]] and [[Social Distortion]].{{sfn|Hoppus|2001|p=79}} The group were gone from their hometown of [[San Diego]] for nearly nine months straight beginning in late 1997.{{sfn|Hoppus|2001|p=80}} "When we did our longest tour stretch, it was right when I started dating my fiancee," 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."{{sfn|Hoppus|2001|p=81}}

[[File:Mark Hoppus 2004.jpg|thumb|125px|right|Bassist [[Mark Hoppus]], the song's lyricist, was inspired by a teen suicide note as well as touring-related loneliness.]]

Bassist Mark Hoppus penned "Adam's Song" to vent these frustrations and the loneliness he experienced on the tour; while the other members had longtime girlfriends to return home to, Hoppus was single.{{sfn|Hoppus|2001|p=83}} "When you're on tour, you're so lonely," Hoppus said. "You hang out with all your bros and it's a great time and everything, but everybody wants to come home and have a girlfriend. And every time we'd fly home, Tom and Scott always had girlfriends waiting for them at the airport, and I didn't. It's about me being depressed and lonely out on tour, and not really having anything to come home to."<ref name=Tempo>{{cite web|author =Woodlief, Mark|url=http://www.mtv.com/news/871773/blink-182-slow-down-tempo-speed-up-charts/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403154510/http://www.mtv.com/news/871773/blink-182-slow-down-tempo-speed-up-charts/|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 3, 2015|title=Blink-182 Slow Down Tempo, Speed Up Charts|publisher=MTV|access-date=March 18, 2015}}</ref> 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."<ref name="rstruth">{{cite magazine|last=Edwards|first=Gavins|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-half-naked-truth-about-blink-182-20000803|title=The Half Naked Truth About Blink-182|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|date=August 3, 2000|access-date=July 18, 2012}}</ref> In opposition to what Hoppus was feeling was the fact that the band were reaching professional highs: ''Dude Ranch'' had gone gold and the band were on the verge of stardom. "It feels ridiculous saying, 'Our band's doing really good, but personally, I'm not feeling like I'm connecting.' It felt like I had too much good fortune to complain about anything," he recalled in a later interview.<ref name="npr"/>

Hoppus said the song's inspiration came from "reading a magazine where some teenage kid had killed himself and left a letter for his family."<ref name="lat2">{{cite news|title=Psst&nbsp;... Blink-182 Is Growing Up|work=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date= May 30, 1999|author =Hochman, Steve|access-date=March 24, 2016|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-30-ca-42373-story.html}}</ref> 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'' (2005) that has the same focus, but was not written until years after the song's release.{{sfn|Shooman|2010|p=76}} 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."{{sfn|Shooman|2010|p=76}}
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 [Titannica] that writes a song with that name encouraging one particular fan to kill himself."{{sfn|Barker|Edwards|2015}} [[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."<ref>{{cite news|title=Monsters of Mock: David Cross on the Music of "Mr. Show"|date=July 23, 2015|publisher=[[Pitchfork Media]]|author =Berman, Stuart|access-date=March 24, 2016|url=http://pitchfork.com/features/interview/9690-monsters-of-mock-david-cross-on-the-music-of-mr-show/}}</ref>