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By the Way (Red Hot Chili Peppers song)

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Released
  
June 10, 2002

Length
  
3:37

Format
  
7" vinyl, CD

Label
  
Warner Bros.

B-side
  
"Time" "Teenager in Love"

Genre
  
Funk rock, alternative rock, rap rock

"By the Way" is a song by American funk rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. It is the title track and the first single released from the band's eighth studio album of the same name. The song was the band's sixth number 1 hit on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, staying at the summit for 14 weeks, tying it with "Dani California" as the band's second longest stay at the top, behind only "Scar Tissue", which was at the top for 16 weeks. It also spent 7 weeks at number 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, their fourth song to top this chart.

Contents

Regarding its release, guitarist John Frusciante noted: "It wasn't really our decision to put that song out first, but our managers thought it was an exciting song and their enthusiasm convinced us. I guess they thought that it combined the wild part of our sound with the melodic part of our sound." Vocalist Anthony Kiedis elaborated: "I thought that single was an über-bombastic assault of non-commercialism. For it to be so well received [in the United Kingdom] was shocking to me, but thrilling at the same time."

"By the Way" has been performed at almost every show since its first performance in 2002, making it one of the band's most performed songs ever with well over 350 performances and counting.

Music video

The music video was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, a couple who have directed many other music videos for the band.

The video starts off with Kiedis calling for a taxi. He gets in the taxi and the cabbie (played by Dave Sheridan) realizes he has him as his passenger. To please him, the driver puts a copy of the "By the Way" single into the taxi CD player, making Kiedis smile mildly. Suddenly, the cabbie begins driving out of control as he lip-syncs the song while driving rambunctiously throughout the streets of L.A. After he locks the car door, an uncomfortable and apprehensive Kiedis attempts to make a call on his cell phone, but the cabbie brakes so hard that Kiedis loses grip of it. The cabbie snatches the phone and throws it out the window, then drives the car in a cloud of dust and backs up under a bridge.

While there, the cabbie pulls out flare sticks and begins to torture Kiedis through awkward dancing while the latter finally pages bassist Flea and Frusciante (with a message reading "Help! Been kidnapped."), who are having lunch in a cafe. At first, they think it's a hoax, so they ignore the first message. When Kiedis pages them for the second time, they set out on Flea's Ford Bronco to find him with the crazy cabbie in the taxi. A wild chase and road rage ensues. Kiedis soon sees Flea and Frusciante, breaks out of the taxi window, and jumps in Flea's truck with a sigh of relief as the three escape the cabbie. At the end of the video, drummer Chad Smith flags down the taxi, with the cabbie realizing he is also a member of the band, so he lets him in and drives off with him.

Kiedis said of the video:

It’s kidnapping… A cab driver kidnaps me and just goes haywire through the town; he’s a fan, but he’s kind of a [pause] obsessive, compulsive, psychologically misarranged fan, and he sees me and starts enjoying himself a little too much and my friends have to come and rescue me.

The fast and often jerky camera angles used in the high speed chase sequences are based on the 2000 Mexican film Amores Perros in which all the characters are linked by a car crash at the beginning of the film; before the crash is an almost identical high speed car chase sequence.

Live performances

Only three other songs have been performed more than "By the Way" which has been performed at almost every show since 2002.

"Waiting 4" Peter Gelderblom remix

An electro house remix of "By the Way" by Peter Gelderblom with co-production by Rene Amesz, entitled "Wating 4" was released on 5 July 2007, and became a popular track in clubs worldwide despite being released without the band's knowledge or approval. The song is called Waiting 4, which is a prominently featured lyric in the original song. It reached #29 for one week in late November/early December 2007 in the United Kingdom. It is included on the compilations Now 68 and Wild Weekends 04 (2007). It was C-listed by BBC Radio 1. A music video was made for the single. It was uploaded on Data Records' official YouTube account on November 13, 2007.

Track listing

CD single / Australia CD1
  1. "By the Way" (Album) – 3:35
  2. "Time" (Previously Unreleased) – 3:47
  3. "Teenager in Love" (Previously Unreleased) – 3:01
CD version 2 / Australia CD2
  1. "By the Way" (Album) – 3:35
  2. "Search and Destroy" (Live) – 12:13
  3. "What Is Soul?" (Live) – 3:58
CD version 3
  1. "By the Way" (Album)
  2. "Time" (Previously Unreleased)
  3. "Search and Destroy" (Live)
CD version 4 / UK CD single / Japan CD single
  1. "By the Way" (Album) – 3:35
  2. "Time" (Previously Unreleased) – 3:47
  3. "Teenager in Love" (Previously Unreleased) – 3:01
  4. "Search and Destroy" (Live) – 12:13
7" single / Canada CD single
  1. "By the Way" (Album)
  2. "Time" (Previously Unreleased)
DVD single
  1. "By the Way" (Music Video) – 3:36; directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
  2. "Obsessive, Compulsive, Psychologically, Misarranged Cabdriver/Fan (aka the making of "By the Way")" – 13:45; directed by Byron Shaw and Bart Lipton for Brown & Serve
  3. "By the Way" (Performance Version) – 3:36

References

By the Way (Red Hot Chili Peppers song) Wikipedia
(Text) CC BY-SA