Me and My Friends #26 - 17 notes on Blood Sugar Sex Magik
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The drone you can (just barely) hear in "Power of Equality", at about 2:38 in the left channel -- I think it's a result of John not quite releasing the Eb string.
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I had the thought recently that "If You Have To Ask" might have been borne out of the band playing "Mommy, Where's Daddy" so often in 1990. Both songs revolve around the same chord, they have similar bass lines, and there are even falsetto vocals as part of the hook. Flea didn't agree.
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This wonderful mention of the "Breaking the Girl" video from the Appleton, Wisconsin Post-Crescent, 26 September, 1992:
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"Funky Monks" has that extended outro from the rough mixes cassette, of course, but that extended version fades out. If you listen to the Rock Band version of the song, you can hear how the song actually ended, as the band recorded it. But of course, that's... also an edited version of the ending.
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The chorus-laden, organ-like sound of the guitar in the chorus of "Suck My Kiss". Or is that an actual organ, played by Brendan O'Brien?
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Have you noticed that track 6 ("I Could Have Lied") to track 13 ("Apache Rose Peacock") are within the 4 minute length? Does that contribute something to the flow of the album, or does it make it sound too samey?
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Everything Anthony makes reference to in "Mellowship Slinky in B Major", which (as Anthony admits in the lyrics) is basically a re-do of "My Favorite Things": Bison, Mike Tyson, The Forum, Los Angeles Lakers, Robert Williams, "Purple Haze", Mark Twain, "True Men Don't Kill Coyotes", Kind of Blue (in reference to the slaughtering of Blue Whales), Truman Capote, Charles Bukowski, Robert DiNero, "Me and My Friends", "Sex Machine", I have no idea what Brother Bean is referring to, unless he means Mr. Bean... but that's unlikely... no-one on this page seems to have any idea either, "Whole Lotta Love", Billie Holiday, and Count Basie.
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Back in November 2002, the band (well, really just John) teased "The Righteous and the Wicked" while on tour in Japan -- the only time they've ever played any part of it live.
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Flea screws up at 3.35 in "Give it Away". I imagine at the time he assumed he got away with it...
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Ever wonder what the end section of "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" would sound like with just John's guitar solo and not Anthony's vocals on top? Wonder no more.
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I think this is probably the best version of "Under the Bridge" the band ever played, but remember when they weirdly opened a show with it in 1998?
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"Naked in the Rain" was first played live on December 31, 1990 (with a different outro), and was played probably only once after that. This always surprised me -- it isn't particularly hard on Anthony's vocals, it's a fun beat to play, and it's probably the most sparse song on the album. Why wasn't it ever resurrected, especially in 1999?
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Another only fairly recent realistion: the final "heavy" section of "Apache Rose Peacock" is just John doubling what Flea is playing during the verse, but with distortion.
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The band opened a 1990 concert with an early version of "The Greeting Song", before it had the "insincere" lyrics that doomed it to obscurity. Anthony has been pretty open with his distaste for this song, which probably explains why it was never played live in full, but it was almost played in Michigan in 2006 -- made it to the handwritten setlist and everything. But once again it was relegated to the opening jam. Why was a full performance scrapped? Anthony again? (The band clearly feel quite fondly for it; a small section used to be part of the Yertle the Turtle Cover Medley, which was played from 1990 all the way to 1999.)
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How old were you when you realised it was "I listen to Roberta Flack" and not "I listen to the butterflies" in "My Lovely Man"?
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Have you heard the "Sir Psycho Sexy" drum track scream? (4:15)
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Here's the Beatles in December 1962 playing "Red Hot" - a song originally recorded by a variety of Sun City recording artists, including Billy Lee Riley, which seems to be a fairly loose cover (or ripoff) of Robert Johnson's version. The Beatles really did do everything first.
Happy December! Almost a year since John's return!
H.