The lyrics
Kiedis writes about a world that copies California. According to his autobiography, he took the opening line from the rant of a woman he heard in the street in New Zealand. After that the images come fast: a teenage bride with a baby on the way, plastic surgery, Kurt Cobain hearing the songs of David Bowie’s Station to Station, and Alderaan, Princess Leia’s planet in Star Wars.
The first Dani
That teenage bride is the earliest version of Dani, the character Kiedis names in By the Way and writes out in full in Dani California. Read the whole story under Dani California.
Nearly left off the album
The lyrics came quickly, the music didn’t. "We tried ten different arrangements and ten different choruses, and nothing ever worked," Kiedis said. Only after weeks did John Frusciante come up with a stripped-back riff that sounded like nothing they had done before. He took the inspiration from Carnage Visors by The Cure.
The video
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris turned it into a video game: the band members are characters on an adventure through California in an open game world. In December 2022 the video passed a billion views on YouTube, the band’s most-watched video.
The song
Californication is the title track of the 1999 album and came out as a single in 2000. In the US it went to number 1 on the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts; in the UK it reached number 16.
How we play it
Californication is always in our set. The song rests on Frusciante’s riff and the bass line underneath; Mark and Tom play them together, without filling them in. Everyone knows the chorus; the verses are the best part.