The Offspring delivered a sprightly rendition of Tiger King star Joe Exotic’s “Here Kitty Kitty,” performing in face masks in a nod to the COVID-19 era.
“She was a rich woman, she had rich tastes/She felt the blood runnin’ through her veins,” frontman Dexter Holland sings, accompanied by guitarist Noodles and a drummer in a tiger suit. “She liked the life she had/She loved her big cats and the beauty of bein’ untamed.”
As everyone who has binged Tiger King knows, the track alludes to Exotic’s insistent accusal that his nemesis, Carole Baskin, murdered her husband in the Nineties: “Everything was fine, just as sweet as wine/But her husband went and disappeared.”
“Like many of you, we are going a little stir crazy these days and we wanted to do something fun to put a smile on our faces, and hopefully on some of yours too,” the Offspring said in a statement.
The band also acknowledged that Exotic didn’t write “Here Kitty Kitty,” which Exotic’s former video producer Rich Kirkham recently confirmed in a Vanity Fair interview: “This song, ‘Here Kitty Kitty,’ was originally by the Clinton Johnson Band, and not by anyone in that recent documentary we all got caught up in,” it said.
“The Offspring wives were group texting recently, and while they all agreed that they truly love their husbands, there are times when they’ve absolutely felt like feeding us to the tigers,” they added. “In that spirit, we hope you enjoy this random song and video.”
Last year, the Offspring joined Blink-182, All-American Rejects, and others at the 25th anniversary Warped Tour shows. They were working on a new album prior to the pandemic, a follow-up to 2012’s Days Go By, produced by Bob Rock.
