Come On Out

Album: Hollywood Park (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • The Airborne Toxic Event frontman Mikel Jollett was born and raised in an experimental commune society called Synanon. Subjected to a childhood filled with poverty and emotional abuse, he ran away from home at the age of 11. This song chronicles his attempt to escape his difficult upbringing.

    Black lungs, headlights, heading off to the city tonight
    Out the front door, turn right, I was alone, alright alright alright
    I wonder what they'll think of me. I'll run away, run away


    Said Jollett: "It's a funny thing about child abuse that when you're still a kid you often don't even know it happened to you because of all the reinforcing narratives around you: that your feelings don't matter, that you're overreacting, that somehow you are in the wrong for being upset. That is all part of the abuse."
  • "Come On Out" is the lead single from Hollywood Park. The album acts as a companion piece to Jollett's 2020 memoir of the same name, which chronicles his tumultuous life. This brings things full circle as Jollett conceived The Airborne Toxic Event's 2008 eponymous debut album as a novel until he realized his writing went better with music.
  • The clip stars Jacob Sandler, who played the child version of Brad Pitt in the movie Ad Astra, as a young Mikel Jollett trying to escape his abusive household. The visual also features Bryce Patterson as a young Daren Taylor, Milo Borghello as a young Steven Chen and Jeremiah Gonzales as a young Adrian Rodriguez.

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