Songfacts®:

• Written and sung by blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge, this song is about a guy going on a date with somebody he really likes and wants to impress, but he doubts himself because he isn't perfect. It was based on DeLonge's angst-ridden first date at with his future wife Jennifer Jenkins at SeaWorld in San Diego.
  
  "Every dude gets nervous whether we admit it or not," he explained in a tour program. "I thought about the first date I had with my lady and put every one of those feelings in this song. I always envy girls. If they want a kiss, it's super easy, they just open their face and do it. For a guy, you have to hope to God she wants one. If not, you are a chump and you go home a wounded soldier. Has anyone ever kissed someone with bad breath? Don't ever kiss someone who eats dog s--t."
• Going into their fourth studio album, Take Off Your Pants And Jacket, DeLonge and his bandmates - bassist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker - had different goals about how the album should sound. Hoppus wanted to emulate their pop-punk smash Enema Of The State, while DeLonge wanted to go heavier and more guitar-driven, and Barker wanted to challenge himself beyond punk-rock. Despite their differences, they managed to crank out a collection of songs that Hoppus described as "catchy, but with a definitive edge." But when the band played the album for their manager, he wasn't convinced and thought they needed a hit single - "That Blink-182 good-time, summer-anthem thing.'"
  
  The band was offended by the suggestion, but their ire ultimately fueled two of the album's hit singles. Hoppus recalled their response in the album's liner notes: "'You want a f--king single? I'll write you the cheesiest, catchiest, throwaway f--king summertime single you've ever heard!' I drove home, grabbed my guitar, sat on the floor, and wrote 'The Rock Show' in 10 minutes. Tom drove home, grabbed his guitar, and wrote 'First Date.'"
• Take Off Your Pants And Jacket was the first punk-rock album to debut at #1 in the US, and it was also blink-182's first #1 album.
• This was used in the 2002 movie Clockstoppers, starring Jesse Bradford.
• This peaked at #6 on the Modern Rock chart.
• For the music video, the band reunited with "The Rock Show" directors The Malloys. This time around, the guys transform into long-haired hippies who tool around the suburbs of British Columbia (Tsawwassen, specifically) in a Volkswagen van and end up at a water park.
  
  The '70s-themed clip, which feature cameo appearances with their tour mates Jordan Pundik and Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory, was partly inspired by a Bee Gees documentary that DeLonge had recently watched and the '70s throwback comedy Dazed And Confused.
• At one point in the video, DeLonge's character, Boomer, a shaggy blond with a mustache, mouths the phrase, "What the f--ck," which became a popular gif in the late 2010s. In 2021, DeLonge created an older brother for Boomer named Disco, who appeared in the "Losing My Mind" video for his post-blink band, Angels & Airwaves.