Hole - Asking For It

This song was written after Courtney Love was attacked and molested by an audience after stage diving at the final show of their "Pretty on the Inside" UK tour in 1991. The event occurred on August 16, 1991 at the Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow, United Kingdom. The photograph in this video is an actual photo taken by an audience member when Love was attacked.
In Love's words: "We had just gotten off tour with Mudhoney, and I decided to stage dive. I was wearing a dress and I didn't realize what I was engendering in the audience. It was a huge audience and they were kind of going ape-shit. So I just dove off the stage, and suddenly, it was like my dress was being torn off of me, my underwear was being torn off of me, people were putting their fingers inside of me and grabbing my breasts really hard, screaming things in my ears like "pussy-whore-cunt". When I got back onstage I was naked. I felt like Karen Finley. But the worst thing of all was that I saw a photograph of it later. Someone took a picture of me right when this was happening, and I had this big smile on my face like I was pretending it wasn't happening. So later I wrote a song called "Asking For It" based on the whole experience. I can't compare it to rape because it's not the same. But in a way it was. I was raped by an audience, figuratively, literally, and yet, was I asking for it?"
The song appeared on Hole's second album, "Live Through This", and Love recorded an unreleased version of the song with husband Kurt Cobain shortly before his death in 1994. The lyrics were written by Love, and Eric Erlandson composed the song in drop-D tuning.
Lyrics:
Every time that I sell myself to you
I feel a little bit cheaper than I need to
I will tear the petals off of you
Rose red, I will make you tell the truth
Was she asking for it?
Was she asking nice?
Yeah, she was asking for it
Did she ask you twice?
Every time that I stare into the sun,
Angel dust and my dress just comes undone
And every time that I stare into the sun-
Be a model, or just look like one
Wild-eyed rocker, do me in
Do you think you can make me do it again?
Was she asking for it?
Was she asking nice?
She was asking for it
Did she ask you twice?
If you live through this with me,
I swear that I will die for you
And if you live through this with me,
I swear that I will die for you
Was she asking for it?
Was she asking nice?
Yeah, she was asking for it
Did she ask you twice?
Was she asking for it?
Was she asking nice?
Yeah, she was asking for it
Did she ask you twice?