Kelly Clarkson Invites Fans to ‘Come Out & Play’ in Latest Kellyoke Cover

You can take the girl out of rock music, but you can’t take rock music out of the girl. Kelly Clarkson proved that the saying is indeed true, as evidence by an energetic cover of The Offspring‘s “Come Out And Play (Keep Em’ Separated)” for the Tuesday (Jan. 17) installment of Kellyoke for her namesake talk show.

Accompanied by her band Y’all, the “Since U Been Gone” singer lets her full vocal range shine through, letting her full bodied tone dominate the track’s chorus, which she punctuated with a soaring high note for good measure.

“Hey, man, you disrespecting me?/ Take him out (you gotta keep ’em separated)/ Hey, they don’t pay no mind/ If you’re under 18 you won’t be doing any time/ Hey, come out and play,” she sang, the band’s urgent guitar and drum instrumentals carrying the beat.

“Come Out and Play (Keep Em’ Separated)” was released as the second single from The Offspring’s third album, Smash. Widely regarded as the band’s mainstream breakthrough, the track hit No. 10 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, where it spent a total of 26 weeks. Upon its 1994 release, Smash reached the top 5 of the all genre Billboard 200, peaking at No. 4 and spending 101 weeks on the chart.

“Come Out and Play (Keep Em’ Separated)” is the latest rock song Clarkson has given a spin for Kellyoke in recent weeks — she gave Blink-182’s “All the Small Things” a shot on the Jan. 12 episode, and performed Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” for the Jan. 6 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show.

Watch Clarkson’s cover for “Come Out and Play (Keep Em’ Separated)” in the video below.

Starr Bowenbank

Billboard