Got Me Wrong

Album: Sap (1992)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song is about how love goggles distort how we perceive the people we're with and how we often erroneously believe we can reshape our partners into what we want them to be.

    In the liner notes of the 1999 Music Bank box set, Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell, who wrote the song, said: "That's about a girl I was dating in between one of the times I broke up with my true love [Courtney Clarke]. A lot of times you'll tell someone how you don't want to be in a relationship and why, and what kind of person you are, and they hear all that but think that they can change you. That's what the song's about, getting me wrong and the different ways that men and women see each other."
  • Originally released on the band's 1992 EP Sap, the song got a lot more attention when it was used in the 1994 movie Clerks and featured on the soundtrack. It plays just after Randal bets a woman $20 that he'll get the copy of Dental School before she does.
  • Both the studio version and the 1996 version from MTV Unplugged received significant airplay. The song spent 21 weeks on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and peaked at #7.
  • This is the only Alice in Chains song that Jerry Cantrell sings both his and Layne Staley's parts at concerts since Staley's death and after the band re-formed in 2006.
  • Cantrell performed this song with Stone Temple Pilots at a November 6, 2001 show in Dallas, Texas.
  • A jazz cover opens the 2012 Where Do You Start album by the Brad Mehldau Trio.
  • Theory of a Deadman covered this song for the the B-side of their "Santa Monica" single and for a special edition of their 2005 Gasoline album.

Comments: 7

  • Nobody\'s Business from Nobody\\\'s Concern, Ohlol the first time i heard this song layne's vocals blew me away cuz the first time i heard it was the unplugged version
  • Aubrey from Jackson, MiThis is the entrance song for my favorite Askewniverse character. That's probably why I find this tune so sexy.
  • Kevin Quinn from Cmch, NjI love this song. Like you, Anthony, this song is one of the theme songs of my life.

    As for your meaning, Gerrit, that isn't correct. It is indeed about relationship problems.
  • Jacob from Rocky Mount, Ncit was orginally from Sap
  • Bryan from Spring, TxAwesome song! One of my favorites in high school.
  • Anthony from Vancouver, WaAlice in chains! Awesomest Band ever. This is like the theme song to my life
  • Gerrit from Spokane, WaThis is a song about people finding all the wrong meanings behind what someone said. As of now I bet you got me wrong!
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