Since forming in 1982, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were easily categorized as L.A. stoner funk rock, and they didn’t do much to dissuade this thinking. Until 1991, when frontman Anthony Kiedis came to the band with a new song. The new lyrics were tender, reflective, and introspective, things the Chili Peppers hadn’t explored much as a band.
“Under the Bridge” changed that and set them on a course for future lyrical depth. The song was included on the 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik, then released as a single in 1992. It fit in well on the radio, lulling fans into surface-level nostalgic sentiment. But lyrically, it was much more dire than its melodic softness conveyed.
Kiedis originally penned “Under the Bridge” as a poem. As a reflection of his own struggles during the height of his heroin addiction and the complicated task of staying clean, as well as his pervasive feelings of loneliness, the song carries a heavy emotional weight. At first, Kiedis felt the poem was too revealing for a song. He was adamant that it wasn’t Red Hot Chili Peppers’ style. But producer Rick Rubin urged him to take it to the band anyway.
Before that, the Chili Peppers were firmly rooted in their funk jams and their psych-punk persona. But they were also being boxed in by it, contained to one image that they’d been slowly growing out of.
Red Hot Chili Peppers Were Catapulted to the Mainstream By ‘Under The Bridge’
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Overall, “Under the Bridge” was about Anthony Kiedis’ loneliness and disconnection from his friends and family around 1990, set against a backdrop of recollections about his heroin addiction in Los Angeles. At this point, Kiedis had been sober since August 1988, two months after original guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose.
“I was driving away from the rehearsal studio and thinking how I just wasn’t making any connection with my friends or family, I didn’t have a girlfriend, and Hillel wasn’t there,” Kiedis told Rolling Stone in 1992. “When I got home that day, I started thinking about my life and how sad it was right now. But no matter how sad or lonely I got, things were a million percent better than they were two years earlier when I was using drugs all the time. There was no comparison.”
“Under the Bridge” was born from that self-reflection and the poignant poem. It thrust The Red Hot Chili Peppers into a new level of stardom. This brought new fans from unexpected walks of life. They’d broken through to the mainstream with Blood Sugar Sex Magik, but the rest of the 90s weren’t as kind. John Frusciante left to sort out his drug problem, and Dave Navarro couldn’t really fill his shoes. But when a new decade was about to dawn, Frusciante returned, along with Rick Rubin as producer. Then, Californication put the Chili Peppers back on the path to mainstream fame, where they still sit upon their funk-rock throne.
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