Iggy Pop has named "I Wanna Be Your Dog," released by The Stooges in 1969, as the band's most "memorable" song, revealing that it is the one track he feels compelled to stage dive to regardless of the venue. His confrontational stage presence, including the stage dives, was reportedly inspired by watching a drunken, erratic Jim Morrison perform with The Doors at the University of Michigan in 1967, an approach Pop went on to channel into his own raw and energetic performances with The Stooges. This influence is widely seen as a key precursor to punk rock, decades before the genre had a name.

In interviews, Pop explained that he does not stage dive at every show, judging each case on the crowd and venue, once noting he would avoid it if the stage were high and the barrier spiked. However, he made an exception for "I Wanna Be Your Dog," saying he performs the dive during the guitar solo because he pushes himself so hard through the first two verses that he has nothing left to do by that point. Despite its ferocity and distortion, the song contains a melodic core that Pop and the band tapped into, and it remains a staple in rock venues more than 50 years after its release.