Songfacts®:

• Lead singer Anthony Kiedis (from Rolling Stone, June 15, 2006): "It's about communicating with God by dancing. Start your dancing engine, and you will have the attention of the great spirit in the sky. That spirit will instantly pay you mind and listen."
• Guitarist John Frusciante composed the solo at the end of the song by filling up an entire 24-track recorder with different guitar parts and fading them in and out over the course of the solo. >>>

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  Michael - Carmel, IN
• The working title was "The Talking Heads Song" because several elements, including Frusciante's guitar and Flea's bass, were reminiscent of the band Talking Heads.
• Flea picked up a bass he had never used before and immediately started playing the bass line for this tune.
• In the album's commentary, Frusciante noted how he and Flea inadvertently played around with movement in the song. In the verses, Flea is playing a groove that stays in one place without chord changes while Frusciante plays chord changes over it. In the chorus, it's the opposite, with Frusciante playing a riff that stays in one place and Flea playing the chord changes. "It's just kind of those little lessons of movement that to me make music really fun to listen to," he said.
• Frusciante, who left the band after the release of Blood Sugar Sex Magik made them superstars in 1991, left again after another milestone: their first #1 album, Stadium Arcadium. Unlike his first departure, which saw him spiral into drug addiction, his second outing allowed him to pursue his dream of making electronic music. In 2019, the Peppers announced his return to the band.