A poem in a notebook
While the band was working on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, producer Rick Rubin came across a poem in Kiedis’ notebook. "I thought it was beautiful. I said, ‘We’ve got to do this,’" Rubin said later. Kiedis had his doubts: it was too personal, and he didn’t think it fitted the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He sang it for the band anyway, and Frusciante and Flea built a song around it.
The city as a friend
Kiedis wrote it in 1991, when he had been off drugs for about three years. That put distance between him and his bandmates. On a drive home he felt how alone he was; the city itself seemed to be his only companion. That’s where the famous opening lines come from: the city he lives in as his only friend.
The bridge
The last verse goes back to his lowest point: under a bridge, on a street gang’s turf, he bought heroin and pretended he was going to marry a gang member’s sister so they would let him in. Kiedis has never said which bridge it is, only that it’s in downtown Los Angeles.
The sound
Frusciante’s intro leans on Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing from 1967. The song stays restrained for a long time and only bursts open at the end, with a choir singing the final lines: Frusciante’s mother Gail and a friend of hers are among the singers.
The song
Under the Bridge came out in early 1992 and became the band’s biggest hit up to then: number 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The video was directed by Gus Van Sant. In 1998 the girl group All Saints took it to number 1 in the UK.
How we play it
Under the Bridge is always in our set. Everyone knows it from the first line, and Mark has to keep the intro exactly as bare as Frusciante meant it. Tom plays the bass line that only comes in late; when the choir joins at the end, the song really opens up.
Sources
- Under the Bridge · Wikipedia