# All the Small Things
**"All the Small Things"** is a song by the American pop-punk band blink-182, written by guitarist and vocalist [Tom DeLonge](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-delonge) for their third album, *[Enema of the State](https://www.edgepedia.org/enema-of-the-state)* (1999). Written late in the album's sessions to supply a catchy radio hit, it became the band's biggest commercial success and, at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, its highest-charting single.[1](https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-all-the-small-things-blink-182-song-lyrics/) • [2](https://www.theringer.com/2019/07/31/music/blink-182-enema-of-the-state)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist / album | blink-182, from *Enema of the State* (1999)[3](https://www.blink182.com/pages/discography) |
| Writers / producer | Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus; produced by Jerry Finn, mixed by Tom Lord-Alge[4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_PBNZXlzp0) • [10](https://songlexikon.de/songs/all-the-small-things/) |
| Written for | DeLonge's girlfriend (later wife, later ex-wife) Jennifer Jenkins[1](https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-all-the-small-things-blink-182-song-lyrics/) |
| Chart peak | Number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, the band's highest-charting hit[2](https://www.theringer.com/2019/07/31/music/blink-182-enema-of-the-state) |
| Music video | Parody of late-1990s pop videos, with its MTV TRL debut on September 22, 1999[5](https://blink182timeline.wixsite.com/mysite/1999) • [6](https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/punk_00032_1) |
| Award | "Best Group Video" at the MTV Video Music Awards, September 7, 2000[7](https://www.geocities.ws/punkamaniadvd/blink182/index.html) |
| First live performance | April 3, 1999, at the Offshore Festival[8](https://www.setlist.fm/song/blink182/all-the-small-things-73d6a651.html) |
## Writing and meaning
During the *Enema of the State* sessions in Los Angeles, the band decided it needed one more hook-laden song that would appeal to radio stations. DeLonge went home and wrote it, an ode to his then-girlfriend [Jennifer Jenkins](https://www.edgepedia.org/jennifer-jenkins), whom he had spent months pining for on the road while touring the previous album, *Dude Ranch*.[9](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit) He described the result as "a pretty little ballad."[9](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit)
The song is a love song built from small domestic details. The second verse was drawn from an actual gesture: Jenkins left roses on the stairs for DeLonge after he had been recording late into the night, giving the lines "She left me roses by the stairs / Surprises let me know she cares." DeLonge's bandmate [Mark Hoppus](https://www.edgepedia.org/mark-hoppus) told *Rolling Stone* at the time that "Tom is totally, 100 percent faithful to his girlfriend."[1](https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-all-the-small-things-blink-182-song-lyrics/) • [9](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit)
**The famous chorus is wordless.** DeLonge later admitted he put the "na-na-nas" in because he could not think of any words for the chorus, a lyrical hurdle he resolved by dropping lyrics altogether.[9](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit) The verses are deliberately brief and punchy; the first verse lines run only four or five syllables each.[1](https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-all-the-small-things-blink-182-song-lyrics/) DeLonge has also cited the Ramones as an influence on the song.[9](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit) Although DeLonge had delivered a straightforward, hook-filled song exactly as intended, he was initially unsure it was distinctive enough, and in a 2022 interview he said he had come to regret his vocal delivery on the track.[9](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit)
## Production and release
The track was recorded for *Enema of the State* with producer Jerry Finn and mixing engineer Tom Lord-Alge, and the credited songwriters are Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus.[4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_PBNZXlzp0) • [10](https://songlexikon.de/songs/all-the-small-things/) It was selected as the album's second single, following "What's My Age Again?"; all three of the album's major singles, "What's My Age Again?", "All the Small Things", and "Adam's Song", were highly successful.[10](https://songlexikon.de/songs/all-the-small-things/) • [3](https://www.blink182.com/pages/discography) The song had already entered the band's live sets before the album cycle fully began; setlist.fm records its first performance on April 3, 1999, at the Offshore Festival.[8](https://www.setlist.fm/song/blink182/all-the-small-things-73d6a651.html)
## The music video
The video, in which the band parodied the slick pop videos then saturating MTV's *Total Request Live*, became a cultural touchstone almost immediately and had its TRL debut on September 22, 1999.[11](https://wikihits.com/1990s/blink-182-all-the-small-things) • [5](https://blink182timeline.wixsite.com/mysite/1999) It mimicked the staging and camera setups of clips by acts such as the [Backstreet Boys](https://www.edgepedia.org/backstreet-boys), *NSYNC, [Britney Spears](https://www.edgepedia.org/britney-spears), and [Christina Aguilera](https://www.edgepedia.org/christina-aguilera), with clear visual debts to *NSYNC's "Tearin' Up My Heart" in its dance sequences, and it also parodied 98 Degrees' "I Do (Cherish You)".[10](https://songlexikon.de/songs/all-the-small-things/) • [6](https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/punk_00032_1) A scholarship on pop-punk reads the video as a way for the band to stage authenticity by ridiculing mainstream pop while deliberately courting the female teenybopper audience that punk convention associated with selling out.[6](https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/punk_00032_1) • [12](https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2002/03/01/i-want-it-way-teenybopper-music-and-girling-boy-bands)
The shoot had personal consequences as well: Hoppus met his wife Skye Everley, who worked for MTV, on the set.[9](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit) At the 2000 [MTV Video Music Awards](https://www.edgepedia.org/mtv-video-music-awards) the video won "Best Group Video"; DeLonge was reportedly so nervous before the live telecast performance that night that he was sick backstage.[7](https://www.geocities.ws/punkamaniadvd/blink182/index.html)
## Commercial and cultural impact
"All the Small Things" turned blink-182 into what one retrospective calls world beaters and became their most successful single, reaching number 6 on the Hot 100.[9](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit) • [2](https://www.theringer.com/2019/07/31/music/blink-182-enema-of-the-state) Before the song, the boundary between pop-punk and mainstream pop was more clearly policed; its crossover success and its melodic chorus, which melts into a round of sing-along "na-na-nas," helped dissolve it.[11](https://wikihits.com/1990s/blink-182-all-the-small-things) • [12](https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2002/03/01/i-want-it-way-teenybopper-music-and-girling-boy-bands) Its crisp, bright guitar tones and compressed, punchy drum sound, produced with Finn, set a template much of pop-punk followed over the following decade.[13](https://songtell.com/blink-182/all-the-small-things)
The song has taken on a life in sporting venues. When the [Colorado Avalanche](https://www.edgepedia.org/colorado-avalanche) won the 2022 [Stanley Cup](https://www.edgepedia.org/stanley-cup), "All the Small Things" served as the team's anthem, sung at full volume by fans at every home game; DeLonge said hearing it still left him sounding, in his own words, "like I'm four years old."[14](https://www.mlb.com/news/tom-delonge-interview-on-the-padres-movies-and-baseball-ufos) In October 2025, more than 43,000 [San Diego Padres](https://www.edgepedia.org/san-diego-padres) playoff fans sang the song aloud, an event DeLonge described as emotional to witness.[15](https://www.spinmagazine.com/2024/09/blink-182-all-the-small-things-interviews/)
Its afterlife extends to other artists. Setlist.fm records the song performed 2,920 times by 427 artists, with [Avril Lavigne](https://www.edgepedia.org/avril-lavigne) among the most frequent cover performers at 68 documented plays.[8](https://www.setlist.fm/song/blink182/all-the-small-things-73d6a651.html) Lavigne performed it with [Simple Plan](https://www.edgepedia.org/simple-plan) at [Quebec City](https://www.edgepedia.org/quebec-city)'s Festival d'été in 2025, telling the crowd that blink-182 had been a key inspiration for both acts before launching into a version the audience sang word for word.[16](https://los40.com/2025/07/07/avril-lavigne-y-simple-plan-nos-llevan-de-vuelta-a-los-90-versionando-all-the-small-things/) Twenty-five years after release, the song and its video remain a fixture of the band's identity: DeLonge recorded parts of the *Enema of the State* period on a pastel Custom Shop Stratocaster with a single Seymour Duncan Invader bridge pickup, a signature model later released commercially in 2001.[17](https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/the-descendents-stephen-egerton-milo)
## References
1. [Behind the Meaning of "All The Small Things" by Blink-182, American Songwriter](https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-all-the-small-things-blink-182-song-lyrics/)
2. [Blink-182's Peter Pan Complex, The Ringer](https://www.theringer.com/2019/07/31/music/blink-182-enema-of-the-state)
3. [Discography, blink-182 Official Store](https://www.blink182.com/pages/discography)
4. [All The Small Things (official audio), YouTube / UMG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_PBNZXlzp0)
5. [1999, Blink-182 Timeline](https://blink182timeline.wixsite.com/mysite/1999)
6. [Putting the 'punk' back into pop-punk (Grebe & Winkler), Punk & Post-Punk](https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/punk_00032_1)
7. [Punkamania DVD: blink-182 on MTV, 2000 archive](https://www.geocities.ws/punkamaniadvd/blink182/index.html)
8. [All the Small Things by blink-182 song statistics, setlist.fm](https://www.setlist.fm/song/blink182/all-the-small-things-73d6a651.html)
9. ["We have a lot of cool songs in Blink, it's weird to me that's the one!": Blink-182 on the making of their biggest ever hit, Louder](https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-blink-182-wrote-their-biggest-ever-hit)
10. [All the Small Things, Songlexikon. Encyclopedia of Songs](https://songlexikon.de/songs/all-the-small-things/)
11. [All The Small Things by Blink-182 (1999) Hot 100 Story, WikiHits](https://wikihits.com/1990s/blink-182-all-the-small-things)
12. ["I Want It That Way": Teenybopper Music and the Girling of Boy Bands, Genders, University of Colorado Boulder](https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2002/03/01/i-want-it-way-teenybopper-music-and-girling-boy-bands)
13. ["All the Small Things" by blink-182: Meaning & Analysis, Songtell](https://songtell.com/blink-182/all-the-small-things)
14. [Tom DeLonge interview on the Padres, movies, and baseball UFOs, MLB.com](https://www.mlb.com/news/tom-delonge-interview-on-the-padres-movies-and-baseball-ufos)
15. [Blink-182: All the Big Ways 'All the Small Things' Still Resonates 25 Years Later, SPIN](https://www.spinmagazine.com/2024/09/blink-182-all-the-small-things-interviews/)
16. [Avril Lavigne y Simple Plan versionan 'All the small things', LOS40](https://los40.com/2025/07/07/avril-lavigne-y-simple-plan-nos-llevan-de-vuelta-a-los-90-versionando-all-the-small-things/)
17. [The secret to Descendents' seminal punk guitar sound (with DeLonge Strat detail), Guitar World](https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/the-descendents-stephen-egerton-milo)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Compositions and songs › Pop, rock, and metal songs › Punk rock songs*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license