Californication (song)

"Californication" is a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, from their seventh album, Californication (1999). Released as a single in 2000, it reached number 69 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number 16 on the UK Singles Chart and number one on both the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks. The song also debuted at number one in Iceland, becoming the third number-one single from the album there.

"Californication"
Single by Red Hot Chili Peppers
from the album Californication
B-side
  • "I Could Have Lied" (Live)
  • "End of Show Brisbane" (Live)
ReleasedMay 20, 2000
Recorded1999
GenreAlternative rock[1]
Length5:21 (Album version)
5:29 (Greatest Hits version)
3:26 (Radio edit)
LabelWarner Bros.
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Rick Rubin
Red Hot Chili Peppers singles chronology
"Otherside"
(2000)		 "Californication"
(2000)		 "Road Trippin'"
(2000)
Music video
"Californication" on YouTube

"Californication" has remained one of the band's most popular and most performed live songs, appearing in almost every setlist since its live debut and making it the band's third-most performed song, with over 500 performances.[2]

Song information

The song explores the dark side of Hollywood and the export of culture through the movie industry. The song begins "Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind's elation." Kiedis says in his book Scar Tissue that he took the inspiration for the line from hearing a woman on a New Zealand street ranting about "psychic spies in China".

The track also makes references to topics such as pornography ("hardcore soft porn") and plastic surgery ("pay your surgeon very well to break the spell of aging") and even some pop culture references including Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, the Foo Fighters (whose nickname is "spheres") and David Bowie ("Cobain, can you hear the spheres singing songs off Station to Station?"), The Beach Boys ("They're just another Good Vibration"), Star Wars ("and Alderaan's not far away") and Star Trek ("Space may be the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement"). The phrase "First-born Unicorn" refers to Dorothy Stratten, whose life was covered in the book The Killing of the Unicorn.

Guitarist John Frusciante exclusively recorded this song and "Otherside" with a vintage Gretsch White Falcon hollow-body electric guitar; he also played these songs live with the White Falcon until 2007 when he retired it for one of his vintage Fender Stratocasters.

It is notable for its sparse combination of guitar and bass notes in the main riff; Frusciante drew inspiration from the song "Carnage Visors" by The Cure.[3] In Kiedis's book, Scar Tissue, the author reveals that the band had enormous difficulty in putting the song together. Kiedis had written the lyrics, which he felt were some of the best he had ever written, but the band could not decide how the song should sound musically.

As they struggled with the song it seemed like they would not be able to finish it in time to include it on the album, until one day Frusciante walked into the studio and exclaimed that he had "figured it out". He played the song as he visualised it, and it went from being a song that could have been an afterthought to becoming one of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' greatest hits, similar to the way "Under the Bridge" was conceived.

Composition

The song begins in the key of A minor with Frusciante picking the chords of Am and F for twelve measures, before picking the chords of C-G-Dm-Am then going back and picks Am and F for 8 more measures before picking C-G-Dm-Am again. For the pre-chorus Frusciante then strums a combination of Am and Fmaj7 chords for twelve measures, until the chorus when he strums the chords C-Gmaj7-Dm9-Am, then C-G-Dm9.

After the second chorus, a 16-measure guitar solo is played by Frusciante, along with a modulation to A major. After the solo, the key returns to the original A minor, and a third verse and final chorus is played.

Music video

The video, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, takes the form of a fictional open world video game that depicts each of the band members on some sort of adventure in a California setting. John Frusciante, sporting a similar hairstyle to that he favored during the Blood Sugar Sex Magik era, runs through Hollywood, dodging celebrities and their bodyguards. Chad Smith, wearing a fedora, snowboards in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, then falls off a cliff and lands on a train.

Anthony Kiedis swims in the San Francisco Bay, surrounded by sharks and women; he then surfs on a shark's back and suddenly jumps into the front seat of a Ford Mustang convertible and drives off. Flea runs through Sequoia National Park, saving a bear from a hunter, riding a mining cart, and escaping many lumberjacks as they are cutting down all the trees.

Frusciante enters a film studio, where he interferes with the productions of a space movie, a pornographic film, and a Leonardo da Vinci biopic. Next Smith rails one of the Golden Gate Bridge's main suspension wires on his snowboard, while Kiedis, joyriding across the bridge, passes through the Andy's Donuts doughnut (a thinly veiled reference to the Randy's Donuts shop); he then drives off a cliff, landing on a giant dragonfly with Flea riding it as the guitar solo begins.

In the meantime, Smith skysurfs, and Frusciante rides the Da Vinci air screw prop from the studio amidst UFOs. Kiedis then leaps off the dragonfly and lands brutally (losing most of his health in the process) in a field of California poppies which grow rapidly around him. The next "level" features the band running through an exaggerated simulation of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, eventually concluding with all four of them meeting at the center of the Earth, where they touch a 3D cube that transforms their computer-generated avatars into their live-action selves, as the message "Game Over" appears at the bottom of the screen and segues into a "Next Game?" prompt.

Intercut with all this is live-action performance footage of the band, which remains in a picture-in-picture insert until a band member catches an item shaped after the band's asterisk logo. This causes the live-action footage to fill the screen for a few seconds, until the next part of the song begins, resuming the "game."[4] The video itself contains many homages to video games of its time, such as Crazy Taxi in Kiedis's sequences and Kiedis's swimming scenes, and SSX in Chad's snowboarding scenes.

The music video is similar to some games that were mostly sandbox/open-world-based gameplay. The music video for "Californication" is the group's most watched on YouTube, with over 680 million views.[5]

Live performances

"Californication" is the band's third-most performed song and has been performed at almost every show since 1999.[2]

Formats and track listings

CD single 1 9362 44907 2

  1. "Californication" – 5:21
  2. "I Could Have Lied" (Live) – 4:26
  3. "End of Show Brisbane" (Live) – 8:11

CD single 2 9362 44908 2

  1. "Californication" – 5:21
  2. "I Could Have Lied" (Live) – 4:26
  3. "End of Show State College" (Live) – 9:27

EP 9362 44872 2

  1. "Californication" – 5:21
  2. "End of Show Brisbane" (Live) – 8:11
  3. "I Could Have Lied" (Live) – 4:26
  4. "End of Show State College" (Live) – 9:27

Personnel

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Charts and certifications

The song was featured in the film Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). In 2009, Brazilian singer Barbara Mendes made a bossa nova cover of this song in the album Rock Bossa.[34]

The song was available as downloadable content for the video game Rock Band 3, but was delisted alongside all other Chili Peppers DLC. In August 2016, the first episode of Hard Knocks used the song during a scene of the Los Angeles Rams' first practice in Irvine, California since 1994. Jared Goff asked about where does the sun lie down at the end of the day referring to a lyric from the song ("The sun may rise in the East/At least it settled in a final location").

References
  1. Gallucci, Michael (June 22, 2013). "Top 10 Alt-Rock Videos From 2000". Diffuser.fm. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
  2. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Tour Statistics". Setlist.fm. Retrieved 2016-02-03.
  3. Songfacts (2016). "Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers". Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  4. Video on YouTube.
  5. Video on YouTube.
  6. "Australian-charts.com – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication". ARIA Top 50 Singles. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  7. "Ultratop.be – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication" (in Dutch). Ultratip. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  8. "Ultratop.be – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication" (in French). Ultratip. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  9. "Top RPM Singles: Issue 7101." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  10. "Top RPM Rock/Alternative Tracks: Issue 9937." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  11. "Offiziellecharts.de – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication". GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved February 25, 2019.
  12. "Íslenski Listinn Topp 20 (22.7–29.7 2000)". Dagblaðið Vísir (in Icelandic). July 21, 2000. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  13. "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Californication". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  14. "Italiancharts.com – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication". Top Digital Download. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  15. "Nederlandse Top 40 – week 30, 2000" (in Dutch). Dutch Top 40 Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  16. "Dutchcharts.nl – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  17. "Charts.nz – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication". Top 40 Singles. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  18. "Official Scottish Singles Sales Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  19. "Swedishcharts.com – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication". Singles Top 100. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  20. "Red Hot Chili Peppers: Artist Chart History". Official Charts Company. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  21. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  22. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Chart History (Adult Alternative Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  23. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Chart History (Alternative Airplay)". Billboard. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  24. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Chart History (Pop Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  25. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Chart History (Adult Pop Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  26. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Chart History (Latin Pop Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  27. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Chart History (Mainstream Rock)". Billboard. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
  28. "Red Hot Chili Peppers Chart History (Latin Tropical Airplay)". Billboard. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  29. "Íslenski Listinn Topp 100". Dagblaðið Vísir (in Icelandic). January 5, 2001. p. 10. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  30. "Top 100-Jaaroverzicht van 2000". Dutch Top 40. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  31. "Italian single certifications – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication" (in Italian). Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana. Retrieved January 30, 2017. Select "2017" in the "Anno" drop-down menu. Select "Californication" in the "Filtra" field. Select "Singoli online" under "Sezione".
  32. "British single certifications – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved April 5, 2018. Select singles in the Format field. Select Platinum in the Certification field. Type Californication in the "Search BPI Awards" field and then press Enter.
  33. "American single certifications – Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved January 9, 2015. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Single, then click SEARCH. 
  34. "Download Rock Bossa by Various Artists". eMusic. November 20, 2009. Retrieved June 18, 2016.
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