Peak
2
Weeks
26
Score
5,414
Chart Year
1992
The accompanying music video for "Under the Bridge" was directed by Gus Van Sant, who photographed the band during their stay at the Mansion and provided the art direction for Blood Sugar Sex Magik.[41] Van Sant knew Flea due to his role in Van Sant's 1991 film My Own Private Idaho.[7] The band members respected Van Sant, and were elated when he agreed to direct the video for "Under the Bridge".[42] Flea credited the video as "the thing that really made us break through the mainstream of American and worldwide pop culture".[7] The video was shot on the streets of Los Angeles and in a studio soundstage. It begins with Frusciante standing alone on a pedestal wearing a red-and-white-striped collared shirt, brown khaki pants, black and white wingtip shoes, and a purple, green and multicolored chullo, with white stitched wolves. He plays a 1966 Fender Jaguar behind the backdrop of a desert and an inverted cloudy sky. His shadow is projected either side of him. Frusciante's then-girlfriend, Toni Oswald, selected his clothes that day. Frusciante remembered Van Sant's surprise: "When I got [to the studio] Gus Van Sant was just looking at me and going 'God, I'm so glad you wore that hat. I'm so glad you wore that shirt. Oh! Those pants are so great, I'm so glad you wore those.'"[7] The video marked a shift in Frusciante's on-camera behavior; he no longer wished to jump around fervently as in the band's prior videos.[7] As Kiedis begins to sing, he appears on camera bathed in purple light with blue fluorescent stars as a backdrop, surrounded by clouds. As the camera pans closer, an image of the skyline of Van Sant's home city, Portland, is superimposed from his chin downwards. Flea and Chad Smith are placed into the image while playing. Van Sant made superimposing the theme of the video; the idea came from a project he worked on with novelist William S. Burroughs.[7] The scenes in the studio are coupled with scenes of Kiedis walking the streets of L.A., wearing a white T-shirt with the words "To Hell And Back"; as he walks, the camera focuses on various people. At various points, Kiedis stands before the Belmont Tunnel before its closure, which he felt was vital; he felt that the studio portion alone would not convey enough emotion: "The first time we shot [the video] it was all in a studio and that didn't seem to capture everything we needed to capture. It needed more; it needed to be combined with an outdoor, streets-of-Los-Angeles thing."[7] Towards the end, Kiedis runs down the Los Angeles River channel in slow motion; the background is a nuclear explosion (the "Baker" shot of Operation Crossroads). The video ends with various superimposed images of the band, followed by Frusciante playing alone on a pedestal—this time with an inverted shot of the ocean as the sky. MTV placed the "Under the Bridge" video on heavy rotation.[43] At the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, the Red Hot Chili Peppers led the nominations, which included the categories of "Best Video", "Best Group", and "Best Direction".[44][45] "Under the Bridge" won the group "Breakthrough Video" and "Viewers Choice Best Video"
Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis wrote "Under The Bridge" about his days as a heroin addict and the loneliness that went with it. The bridge mentioned in the song is a place where he sometimes went to buy drugs and get high. After four albums of unorthodox hardcore funk, Red Hot Chili Peppers landed a huge hit with the ballad "Under The Bridge," which was not at all typical of their sound. The song went all the way to #2 on the Hot 100 (behind "Jump" by Kris Kross) and got on playlists with the likes of Celine Dion and Michael Bolton. It remains their biggest hit. The song was particularly challenging for Kiedis to sing during the Blood Sugar Sex Magik tour, but the Chili Peppers became comfortable with the sound and followed it up with more slower singles like "Soul to Squeeze" and "Breaking the Girl." It didn't feel like a sell-out because these songs were all very heartfelt, just a lot more vulnerable than their previous work. This song was originally just a poem that Anthony Kiedis wrote. He didn't write it for the Chili Peppers - it was a very personal poem that he thought he might use somewhere else. Their producer Rick Rubin found it in one of his notebooks and told Anthony that it could be a great song. At first, he didn't want to sing it or share it with anyone, but he eventually came around. Rubin recalled to Newsweek in a 2013 interview: "My thinking was that the Chili Peppers were not limited to being a funk band with rapping. And I remember Anthony was embarrassed to show the song to the other guys in the band. But he sang it to John [Frusciante, guitarist] and John came up with his part. Then he played it for Flea [bassist] and Flea came up with his part. And it ended up being a really good song—even though they didn't realize how good it was until people starting responding to it." The band got a headlining slot on the 1992 Lollapalooza Tour when this song became a hit. The gig greatly expanded their fan base and showcased their skills as a very energetic live band, but beneath the surface, all was not well. The band was burned out and feuding; John Frusciante quit in the middle of the tour, and their bass player Flea crashed hard when they finally got off the road in October 1992. They took some time to recuperate (Flea kicked his drug habit) and returned in 1995 with the album One Hot Minute. The "City of Angels" Anthony Kiedis sings about here is Los Angeles, where he lived since he was 12 years old. Much of the song deals with his relationship with the city. "It really repulses me these days," he told Goldmine in 1996. "Just sucking in that toxic cloud of hellish smog every day that I live... not a pleasant thought. But I do have a strong family tie to that city that I'll probably never be able to sever." Guitarist John Frusciante's mother sang backup on this song along with two of her friends from church. They're credited on the album as "Gail Frusciante and her friends." In his book Scar Tissue, Kiedis explains that he thought up the lyrics while he was driving from a session with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was sad because John Frusciante and Flea were getting closer as friends and Anthony was set apart from that, and he was also ruminating on the death of Hillel Slovak, his good friend and original guitarist in the band, who had a drug overdose in 1988. This is when the opening line came to him: "Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner." "I started freestyling some poetry in my car and putting the words to a melody and sang all the way down the freeway," he wrote. "When I got home, I got out my notebook and wrote the whole thing down in a song structure, even though it was meant to be a poem to deal with my own anguish." Flea shared his thoughts on this song in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "It was expressing a really honest, sincere, lonely feeling," he said. "Anthony really captured a feeling of being a lonely person in Los Angeles, and this is such a big city with so many people, I think a lot of people could relate to it. Especially the time that the riots happened. It was about being in Los Angeles and feeling totally alienated." Before he left the band in May 1992, John Frusciante would sometimes improvise intros and exaggerate his background vocals when performing this song live because he was getting fed up with the song and with Kiedis. This is evident on their February 22, 1992 Saturday Night Live performance when he clearly throws Kiedis off at the beginning of the song, then screams his backup vocals later in the performance. The music video was directed by Gus Van Sant, who went on to direct the movies Good Will Hunting and Finding Forester. The bridge in the video also appears in the "By The Way" video. >> The UK girl band All Saints covered "Under The Bridge" in 1998, transforming it into a run-of-the-mill love song. Notable changes were the line "City of Angels" to "City of cities," "I walk through her hills" to "I walk through his field," and a complete deletion of the last verse due to the drug references. It was released as a double A side single with another cover, "Lady Marmalade," and reached #1 on the UK singles charts. The Yorkshire singer-songwriter Richard Hawley played guitar on the All Saints version. >> In Weird Al Yankovic's "Bedrock Anthem" this song and music video is parodied in the beginning. It then switches to a parody of "Give It Away." >> Guitarist John Frusciante's intro drew heavily on the 1971 David Bowie song "Andy Warhol." His guitar playing becomes more rapid until it reaches an E major seventh chord that halts the song. He borrowed the E major seventh chord technique from T. Rex's "Rip Off," a track from the British group's 1971 album Electric Warrior. Blood Sugar Sex Magik was the first album the band released for Warners Records (they were previously with EMI). It was also their first album that had the same lineup from their previous album.
Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner Sometimes I feel like my only friend Is the city I live in, the city of angels Lonely as I am, together we cry I drive on her streets 'cause she's my companion I walk through her hills 'cause she knows who I am She sees my good deeds and she kisses me windy Well, I never worry, now that is a lie I don't ever wanna feel Like I did that day Take me to the place I love Take me all the way I don't ever wanna feel Like I did that day Take me to the place I love Take me all the way Yeah, yeah, yeah It's hard to believe that there's nobody out there It's hard to believe that I'm all alone At least I have her love, the city, she loves me Lonely as I am, together we cry I don't ever wanna feel Like I did that day Take me to the place I love Take me all the way I don't ever wanna feel Like I did that day Take me to the place I love Take me all the way Yeah, yeah, yeah Oh, no, no-no, yeah, yeah Love me, I say, yeah yeah One time (Under the bridge downtown) Is where I drew some blood (Under the bridge downtown) I could not get enough (Under the bridge downtown) Forgot about my love (Under the bridge downtown) I gave my life away Yeah, yeah Oh, no, no-no-no, yeah, yeah Oh, no, I said, oh, yeah, yeah Where I stay
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apr 4, 1992 | 80 | 46 |
| 2 | Apr 11, 1992 | 62 | 64 |
| 3 | Apr 18, 1992 | 35 | 91 |
| 4 | Apr 25, 1992 | 24 | 102 |
| 5 | May 2, 1992 | 12 | 114 |
| 6 | May 9, 1992 | 8 | 118 |
| 7 | May 16, 1992 | 6 | 120 |
| 8 | May 23, 1992 | 3 | 123 |
| 9 | May 30, 1992 | 3 | 123 |
| 10 | Jun 6, 1992 | 2 | 124 |
| 11 | Jun 13, 1992 | 3 | 123 |
| 12 | Jun 20, 1992 | 4 | 122 |
| 13 | Jun 27, 1992 | 3 | 123 |
| 14 | Jul 4, 1992 | 3 | 123 |
| 15 | Jul 11, 1992 | 3 | 123 |
| 16 | Jul 18, 1992 | 3 | 123 |
| 17 | Jul 25, 1992 | 8 | 118 |
| 18 | Aug 1, 1992 | 15 | 111 |
| 19 | Aug 8, 1992 | 20 | 106 |
| 20 | Aug 15, 1992 | 23 | 103 |