"Hit That" is a song by American rock band the Offspring, included as the fourth track on the band's seventh studio album, Splinter (2003), and was released as its first single. The song also appears as the 13th track on their Greatest Hits (2005). "Hit That" was released to US rock radio on November 3, 2003.
Upon its release, "Hit That" reached the top 20 on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and on the UK Singles Chart, as well as No. 64 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song also topped the BillboardModern Rock Tracks chart; this was the first time an Offspring song would reach No. 1 on that chart since their breakthrough single "Come Out and Play" was released a decade earlier in 1994.
The song's lyrics, as put by Dexter Holland, are "about the consequences of promiscuity or the idea that no matter what the consequences might be, people are going to be out there doing it with each other", discussing how it results in teenage pregnancy and dysfunctional families.[2] Holland detailed:
"It's about taking responsibility. A generation ago, people were talking about the disintegration of the family because everyone was getting divorced, and how it was taking such a terrible toll on society. Well, you look around nowadays, and it's disintegrated so much more. Joe Blow has got three different kids by three different girls and vice versa, and it's happening more and more. And ultimately the kids are the ones who suffer from that. But when you get down to it, people are gonna hook up, so there's nothing you can do about it."[3]
The music video for the song, directed by John Williams and David Lea, tried to reflect the irresponsible male of the lyrics not in a literal way, but by telling the story of a dog that turns out to be an amoral force of mayhem, and needed to be caught and neutered to stop its destructive nature. The video combines live-action footage and computer-generated effects, with Williams and Lea playing the part of the dog's owner, a blue man lip-syncing the song's lyrics done by wearing gloves and a mask, onto which digital eyes and mouth were superimposed, to create what Williams described as "a character you can't peg as either completely real or completely computer-generated". To create the same effect on the dog, there was an attempt at making a Great Dane wear a mask, but the dog did not like it, so instead an illuminated muzzle was worn that gave reference for the eventually superimposed animated head. A first draft had caricatures of The Offspring's members through the video, but the band denied that, wanting to avoid something resembling a typical performance video.[2]
