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 the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock Tracks and Modern Rock Tracks charts. It was the third number-one "Californication" single in Iceland.
"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.
Recording.
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 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 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 and David Bowie. The "spheres" are a reference to Music of the Spheres, an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies as a form of music ("Cobain, can you hear the spheres singing songs off "Station to Station"?"). Other cultural references include 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".
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-F-Dm then going back and picking Am and F for 8 more measures before picking C-G-F-Dm 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. It is notable for its sparse combination of guitar and bass notes in the main riff; Frusciante drew inspiration from "Carnage Visors" by The Cure.
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. The music video for "Californication" is the group's most watched video on YouTube, with over 800 million views.
Live performances.
"Californication" is the band's third-most performed song and has been performed at almost every show since 1999.
Formats and track listings.
CD single 1 
CD single 2 
EP 
Personnel.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
In popular culture.
The song was featured in the film "" (2005). In 2009, Brazilian singer Barbara Mendes made a bossa nova cover of this song in the album "Rock Bossa".
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").