Dark Necessities

Album: The Getaway (2016)
Charted: 72 67
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Songfacts®:

  • The first single off The Getaway is a dreamy funk rocker that features Anthony Kiedis singing druggy confessions about dark temptations.

    Flea told The Pulse of Radio that this almost didn't become the first single. "I mean, I knew that was a good song," the bassist said. "There was another one that was gonna be the first single and then we... Like, we already told the record company, 'Okay, we're gonna do this one,' and then we changed our mind and went to 'Dark Necessities'. But I'm glad we went with it."

    "What I like about this record is that every song really occupies its own space, the songs don't repeat themselves, and that one was a great song," Flea added. "It's dynamic and it just feels great to play, you know. It has a real pull to it."
  • The Getaway is the first Chili Peppers album since 1989's Mother's Milk to not feature the production of Rick Rubin. Instead, it was helmed by Danger Mouse and mixed by Radiohead's Nigel Godrich.

    Anthony Kiedis told Rolling Stone on recording with Danger Mouse, "He's very good about coming up with super-modern ideas, but he'll also touch on the acoustic guitar in the control room and strip the song down to its acoustic essentials, which is a beautiful place to be."
  • The song's music video was directed by Hollywood actress Olivia Wilde (Vinyl, House). Her only previous directorial credits were a short film called Free Hugs and the clip for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' "No Love Like Yours."

    The video features notable female long boarders Carmen Shafer, Amanda Caloia, Amanda Powell and Noelle Mulligan skating through Los Angeles. Anthony Kiedis stated about the band's decision to work with Wilde: "We received [her treatment] and it was very simple and it was about this dark and bruised side of these athletes, these female skateboard athletes and it was just easy and simple and we were trying to do simplicity."
  • The band wrote the song in the studio with Danger Mouse, then they sent it on to Anthony Kiedis to pen the lyrics. Kiedis explained the meaning of his lyrics in a track-by-track commentary:

    "They sent that to me on a CD because I’m old school like that and I like to go work in my car that has a CD player. And I listened to it and I was pretty immediately stricken with my part in the song, which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t. Sometimes you hear a piece of music that you fall in love with but you have no idea, as a vocalist, what you’re supposed to do with it; just doesn’t make sense, the timing is weird, the melodies are weird.

    With that song I was like, I know what to do with this song, I think I know what my part is, and I took that and went to Hawaii and wrote lyrics for it. And it just kind of speaks to the beauty of our dark sides and how much creativity and growth and light actually comes out of those difficult struggles that we have on the inside of our heads that no one else can see."
  • This topped all three of Billboard's rock airplay charts: Alternative Songs, Mainstream Rock Songs and Adult Alternative Songs. It was the fourth song to achieve this feat following The Wallflowers' "One Headlight," Green Day's "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" and the Chili Peppers own "Dani California."

Comments: 1

  • Anonymous from Dani, CaliforniaIt's one of their best. I'm glad at least one new rock band can make good music.
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