Tag Archives: red hot chili peppers

#1443: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge

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Hey, guys. It’s ‘Under the Bridge’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers. You know, one of the band’s most well-known songs. One of the most recognisable in the genre known as “alternative rock”. I like it. Again, I can’t pin down the first time I ever heard this one. But I’m willing to guess it was on one of the various music television channels that were included with the NTL box. Most likely MTV2. Anyone remember NTL? People in the UK will know. Even if the Chili Peppers didn’t have any new music out, videos by the band were always playing on those channels. They’d been a household name for more than a decade by the mid-2000s. A fond memory I do have of ‘Under the Bridge’ though, is that I was sort of humming it during class one day in, like, 2006 – the ending part where Flea and John Frusciante play the song out – I thought I was being quiet and to myself, but the teacher heard it. She asked, “Who’s humming?” And just as I was about to ‘fess up and apologise, a girl sitting across from me put the blame on a totally innocent classmate. I don’t think she knew it was me who was humming. I think she was just being mean. So I was in the clear, and life went on. Kids can be so cruel.

So, yeah, ‘Under the Bridge’. I don’t know what you could say about it that isn’t on its dedicated Wikipedia page. I guess if you’re reading this for the first time and you’ve never heard the track before, it’s good to start with the basics. Reflecting on a time when he felt he was at his lowest in terms of drug dependency, singer Anthony Kiedis originally wrote the words for ‘Under the Bridge’ as a poem. Not intended for use of any kind, especially not musically. Producer Rick Rubin saw the lyrics one day and pushed Kiedis into showing them to the rest of the band. Kiedis did so, begrudgingly, but John Frusciante, Flea and Chad Smith were all into it. The track was recorded during the sessions for what would become the band’s 1991 album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. A classic, their best LP depending on who you ask, and the record that made the band an internationally recognised name. It was its inclusion on Blood Sugar… that stopped ‘Soul to Squeeze’ from being in the final tracklist too. “One soft song was enough” is what I remember someone saying about that in an interview. Think it was Frusciante.

‘Cause the band always felt a real importance to bring the funk on their work, ‘Under the Bridge’ was unlike anything they had done before. Less in-your-face and more subtlety. Frusciante’s guitar throughout sums that whole notion up, a big chef’s kiss. His mother and her friends provide the choir vocals over the climactic coda. Flea’s bassline is a whole other melody in itself when it comes in the first chorus. Kiedis’s singing ain’t too bad either. The song was released as the second single from Blood Sugar… and commercially shot them into another stratosphere. John Frusciante was not happy about this. The year was 1992, and whenever it came to playing this song live, he would do whatever it took to make sure ‘Under the Bridge’ did not go smoothly. This led to performances like the infamous one on Saturday Night Live or another awkward one in France’s Canal Studios. Generally, he did not enjoy being in the band at the time, citing that he hated how famous they’d become, and he would go off-course in every song they would do when they were out on tour. Being the most successful and well-known out of all the songs, ‘Under the Bridge’ suffered the most at his hands. He soon left the band and got into things that don’t need expanding on, it’s all heavily documented already. But he came back. Then left again. Then came back again. It’s been smooth sailing since.

#1304: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Suck My Kiss

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Been a long, long time since I’ve covered a song from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik album. I wouldn’t say it’s a personal Desert Island pick of mine. I’m rarely ever in the mood to want to listen to it the whole way through. But the couple times I have, it’s usually been a good time. I’m rambling on about my experiences with that particular record, just because it’s the one where you can find the subject of today’s post. Really, back in 2005 or something, my sister was loaned the Chili Peppers’ 2003 Greatest Hits compilation by a friend of hers. ‘Suck My Kiss’ was on there. But I don’t think I was into the band’s funkier tracks back then, compared to the sing-songier ones that were usually played on TV too. But I grew up a few years, revisited the song through BSSM and immediately saw it as one of the best songs on there.

It’s all about the bass line. Honestly, I’ve sung along to that more times than reciting Anthony Kiedis’s words when I’ve listened to the song. Flea on bass, along with John Frusciante on guitar, play this mainly two-note riff during the verses in unison, with Flea’s bass more forward in the mix. The groove is tighter than anything and infectious as anything. Gets stuck in the head very easily. Chad Smith on drums brings it all together. You can sort of tell this must of been the result of some sort of jam between the three instrumentalists. Have you ever noticed how those bass-guitar stabs after the “Is she talking dirty” / “Is she gonna curtsy” lines are played three times in the first chorus, two times in the second, and then for once only in the the last one? Once I did, I thought it was very clever stuff. The type of move that I can only assume a group of musicians really in tune with each other would come to think of.

But if I have to do some kind of analysis of Anthony Kiedis’s lyrics, I don’t think it would go any more in-depth than what you reading this would think about them. Typically of that era of the band, he’s rap-singing, delivering words which may not align with one another or have any narrative structure, but are more to fit with the music surrounding him. And fair play to him, it’s a formula that hasn’t let him down. Especially on Blood Sugar…, a lot of the lyrics concern Kiedis’s desire to seek out a beautiful woman and have a good time with them. To put it lightly. And that’s what ‘Suck My Kiss’ boils down to, funnily enough. There’s lyrics like “Little Bo Peep coming for my stun gun”, “Do me like a banshee”, “Do me now, do me here, I do allow”. These are the words of a very horny man. Nothing wrong with that, I don’t think.

#1160: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Scar Tissue

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When I was a younger buck, the video for ‘Scar Tissue’ would show up on the TV out of the blue on numerous occasions. This would have been after the Californication era of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Heck, even after By the Way. Music channels in the UK in the 2000s would show RHCP just ’cause they’re a popular band anyway. But I’m thinking the video would have been shown more around the time Stadium Arcadium was on the horizon, ‘Dani California’ was the hot new single, and general hype for the Chilis was at a big, big high. All of this is a roundabout way to say, seeing the video on these channels was how I got to know the song.

‘Scar Tissue’ was the first single released from Californication back in 1999. When I found this out initially, I was kinda confused. The track isn’t one of the most upbeat things you’ll ever hear. The band looked battered and bruised in the music video. Pre-pubescent me thought the whole thing was a bit of a downer. But I recognise now that it was meant to be more a symbolic choice more than anything. It showcases the band’s newer melodic, mellow style after the funky Sex Magik and harder-rock One Hot Minute albums that came earlier in the decade. John Frusciante was back in the band. The first thing you hear is Frusciante’s lick that opens the song, he’s driving the car in the music video, the weeping slide-guitar solos are just a few of its highlights. It all made sense once some thought on my part went behind it. It is still a bit of a downer, but sometimes you need those kinds of songs anyway.

Like a lot of things penned by Anthony Kiedis, the song isn’t about anything much at all and are just words written to coalesce with the music that Frusciante, Flea and Chad Smith provide, leaving it all to the listener’s interpretation. I think it’s more about the imagery in this case. He can come up with some laughable headscratchers, it’s true, but you won’t find any here. The melody’s simple, only really alternating between two notes, before switching up for the choruses that are capped off by Frusciante’s guitar solos. You’re guaranteed to see it if you were to see the band live. I don’t think Frusciante’s played those solos in the same way since they first made the track. Overall, some great, great stuff.

#1130: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Road Trippin’

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Alongside 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ album Californication from 1999 is seen to be the cream de la cream* within the band’s discography. The album marked the first return of guitarist John Frusciante, who, after leaving the band initially in ’92, had spent nearly the rest of the decade getting as low as he could on an almighty drug binge that shockingly didn’t kill him. After coming out of rehab and having to change his approach to guitar playing, the chemistry between he, Flea, Chad Smith and Anthony Kiedis was rekindled and the “classic” lineup created what was considered by critics and fans to be a return to form after the band’s previous album One Hot Minute (which isn’t all that bad anyway.)

If you were to ask me what I thought about the album, I’d say it’s very front loaded (with four of its first eight songs being singles) and the whole second half is rather forgettable. It’s actually one of those albums in need of a remaster too because the loudness and clipping that happens on some songs is kind of ridiculous. But hey, that’s just me. Well, I say the whole half. I don’t mean it. There’s penultimate track ‘Right on Time’ which is a hectic freak-out. But the song that follows that, and closes out the entire album, is the finisher – today’s track – ‘Road Trippin’, a mainly acoustic number with no percussion accompanying, but instead an organ-generated string section that adds a sense of drama and fullness to the proceedings.

The track is an account by Anthony Kiedis of a road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway that he, Frusciante and Flea embarked on following the return of the guitarist. Drummer Chad Smith didn’t join them, hence the “two favourite allies” lyric, though that doesn’t stop people from jokingly referring to the exclusion. Like I said before, it’s unlike a lot of RHCP tracks ’cause it’s one for the acoustic guitars. Frusciante’s on one, Flea’s on an acoustic bass. Doesn’t stop them from locking in together and playing some sweet melodies that weave and play off one another. Kiedis’s lyrics, usually mocked and made a meme out of, are actually quite beautiful here, almost poetic, and Frusciante’s harmonies only heighten the feel-good sensations. It could have just been those three alone on here, and I feel it would have worked just as well. Luckily, the synthesized “strings” don’t sound so fake that you realise it’s not an actual string section. There are plenty of other songs that fail that task.

*I know it’s ‘crème de la crème’, just some dry humour.

#888: Red Hot Chili Peppers – My Friends

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Though Red Hot Chili Peppers are sometimes known as that group with the guy who kinda raps nonsense and sings about California all the time, you can’t deny that Anthony Kiedis comes up with some good melodies to his lyrics. He may have some assistance from his bandmates. I could see John Frusciante being heavily involved in that front. But even when Frusciante wasn’t there for that period in the ’90s where he left the band and became a full-on junkie, the band still delivered – albeit with a new guitarist in Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction, and a new heavy rock/less funk change in sound that arrived as a result.

‘My Friends’ is a track from One Hot Minute, the only album of the group’s to feature Navarro as a guitarist, released in 1995. It was also released as a single from there, hence its music video above. That is the original video, but upon seeing it Anthony Kiedis decided he didn’t like it, so another one was made. I’ll embed that below. The original though is how I came across the song in the first place. Was probably 10 or something and it showed on MTV2. I mean, there was that time that Stadium Arcadium was coming soon, so it only made sense that everyone prepared by showing Red Hot Chili Pepper videos throughout the day. Even though the video may have been a bit strange to me, the song sounded good. Kiedis sings about being there for his friends, present and past, whenever they’re at their lowest, loving them, and letting them know that he’s been in their place.

I listened through One Hot Minute once a while ago. From looking around I’ve gathered that it’s a bit of an outsider in the discography of RHCP in terms of appreciation. Mainly ’cause of the lack of Frusciante and the whole change in sound and everything. I probably couldn’t judge with that much merit, but I remember feeling like it went on for ages. Though the singles from there are up there with some of the band’s best songs, I feel. ‘My Friends’ is definitely a dark horse. Just how I feel, you know.