Red Hot Chili Peppers released Blood Sugar Sex Magik on September 24, 1991, the same day as Nirvana’s Nevermind. Together, they were part of a shifting zeitgeist.
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A few years before their landmark album, few people could have predicted the California band would someday sell out stadiums while singing earnest ballads about heartbreak and despair. They were an underground group, probably more famous for where they placed a tube sock than the hooks they wrote. But in 1988, they overcame the death of their guitarist before their rebirth the following year with a teenage virtuoso on Mother’s Milk.
Having survived, they mixed Blood Sugar’s funky, nuanced jams with tender introspection on ballads like “Breaking the Girl,” “Under the Bridge,” and “I Could Have Lied.”
In “I Could Have Lied,” a brokenhearted, funky monk details a celebrity relationship that may or may not have happened.
Scar Tissue
In his 2004 memoir Scar Tissue, lead vocalist Anthony Kiedis claimed he had a short romantic relationship with Irish singer and songwriter Sinéad O’Connor. He met O’Connor in 1989 at a music festival and mentioned he and bassist Flea were fans of her album The Lion and the Cobra.
They didn’t see each other again until she moved to Los Angeles, where they eventually reconnected. They began hanging out, and though Kiedis was smitten, O’Connor quickly ended the affair.
Meanwhile, O’Connor took actor Daniel Day-Lewis as her date to the Academy Awards Governors Ball instead of a distraught Kiedis. Then she decided to leave Los Angeles and asked Kiedis not to call or show up to say goodbye.
“All Along the Watchtower“
So, Kiedis, in despair, turned to lead guitarist John Frusciante, who suggested he write about the experience. While it rained outside, he sat at his dining table and repeatedly listened to Jimi Hendrix’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower” for inspiration. Thus, “I Could Have Lied” was born.
There must be something
In the way I feel
That she don’t want me to feel
The stare she bares cut me
I don’t care
You see, so what if I bleed
Kiedis drove to Frusciante’s house around midnight, and together, they finished the song at 5 a.m. Eager and heartbroken, Kiedis drove through the rainstorm to O’Connor’s place, carrying a cassette of “I Could Have Lied.” He dropped it through her mail slot on her final night in L.A.
I could have lied. I’m such a fool
My eyes could never, never, never keep their cool
Showed her, and I told her how
She struck me, but I’m f–ked up now
Years later, Kiedis saw O’Connor at the MTV Video Music Awards. She was with Peter Gabriel, and there was an awkward hello in the parking lot, though he didn’t ask whether she’d received the tape.
“Pure Fantasy”
O’Connor rejects Kiedis’ claim about the relationship. In her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, she wrote that the relationship happened “only in his mind.” However, she did confirm her “fling” with Peter Gabriel.
When asked about Kiedis, she told the Irish Independent, “This is just pure fantasy. I never even kissed Anthony Kiedis. He did try it on with me once—but it was at the most inappropriate time. It was all purely platonic.”
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
In 1991, the Red Hot Chili Peppers began a long creative partnership with producer Rick Rubin on their fifth album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Their funk-rock masterpiece became a cultural touchstone as alternative guitar-based music dominated mainstream pop culture.
The album’s first two singles, “Give It Away” and “Under the Bridge,” received constant airplay on MTV, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers quickly became one of the biggest rock bands in the world.
Kiedis, Frusciante, Flea, and drummer Chad Smith created a breakthrough album about sex, drugs, equality, and death, now considered one of the greatest albums of its era.
Californication
Though they had survived the death of founding guitarist Hillel Slovak from an accidental heroin overdose, their newfound success would soon swallow another bandmate. Frusciante had idolized Slovak, but with the success of Blood Sugar Sex Magik he no longer lived under the shadows of his hero, whom he’d replaced in 1988.
However, Frusciante struggled with his own demons and quit the group at the height of their success in 1992 before descending into near-death addiction. He seemingly rose from the dead and returned for Californication (1999), By the Way (2002), and Stadium Arcadium (2006) before leaving again.
In 2019, he returned to record two new albums, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen—each released in 2022.
The Righteous & the Wicked
While Slovak created the blueprint, Frusciante added a virtuosic range to match Flea’s funk-punk bass. He and Kiedis shaped Chili Pepper jams with earworm melodies while the band layered punk-choir gang vocals and, occasionally, Flea’s trumpet.
Kiedis’ freewheeling lyrics and Flea’s slippery grooves now had melody and hooks that took the group from clubs to stadiums—pushed along by Smith’s thunderous drumming.
The despair Kiedis details in “I Could Have Lied” is delivered over Frusciante’s minimalist acoustic guitar. Moreover, Frusciante doesn’t play an acoustic guitar like a folk musician. Instead, he attacks it like a punk guitarist at war with producer Brendan O’Brien’s mixing console. It all peaks with his beautifully fuzzed and weepy guitar solo.
Whether or not Kiedis invented or embellished his relationship with O’Connor, the experience moved him to create an emotional and enduring song.
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Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
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