Red Hot Chili Peppers: Californication Meaning

Song Released: 2000

Californication Lyrics

Psychic spies from China
Try to steal your mind's elation
Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations
And if you want these kind of dreams
It's Californication

It's the edge of the world
And all of western...

1. anonymous

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   Feb 9th 2009 !⃝

   I live in California and I don't think it's that bad... except L.A.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
2. anonymous

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   Jan 24th 2009 !⃝

   first of all, its alderaan not alderson. Alderaan
   the planet princess Leia was from in Star Wars. Alderaan
   was destroyed by The Empire, implying that the world is
   being destroyed.
3. anonymous

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   Dec 11th 2008 !⃝

   I agree with most of the interpretations posted. It's essentially about the corruption that Hollywood inflicts upon the rest of the world.
   
   But I also think it goes further than that. It implies that people only CARE about what Hollywood sells. Consider the lyrics:
   "And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar
   They're just another good vibration
   And tidal waves couldn't save the world
   From Californication "
   Keidis is basically saying that modern society doesn't care about that which doesn't affect them. The girl doesn't care about the earthquakes; likewise, the suffering of others (in the form of tidal waves) means as much to people as the latest produce from Hollywood.
   
   Hollywood's superficial, skin-deep attitude is beginning to affect us.
   "Pay your surgeon very well
   To break the spell of aging
   Sicker than the rest
   There is no test
   But this is what you're craving"
   We care about what we look like because mass media dictates that we should.
4. anonymous

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   Nov 2nd 2008 !⃝

   I think everyone is partially right, none of us are the peppers so we couldn't say anything for sure, but one quotation i feel most are lacking is that they mention the roads may be rough but it also breeds creation. They also mention that an earthquake is just another good vibration. the song to most seems to diss cali, but i think it embraces it. I live in cali and love it here. What i think everyone is picking on tho is that hollywood is empty- but its not. the beauty of hollywood is the appearance, so it could easily be confused to an outsider, but appearance is asethtics and asethics is art. hollywood is art, and its beautiful. I think tho, sometimes people that are empty try to grasp onto the image and fill some hole of theirs, but that's not what it is there for. Hollywood is a production and a production is meant to take you away from reality for a little, but for some people they don't want to return to reality. So for me, i feel this song is talking more about the empty souls that tend to flock to hollywood because their own reality is not what they want. this doesn't mean hollywood is evil and corrupting- it just is attractive. for those who are hole tho find happiness like the girl with her guitar. i think blaming california for the world's corruption is pathetic and not what is going on here. it just so happens to be tho, that some very empty souls seek it out misguidedly.
5. anonymous

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   Oct 25th 2008 !⃝

   Hey everyone its basically about how California leads the world through the media. How trends and fashions in California soon reach the rest of the world because of how publicized California is. The one line I don't get is "Cobain can you hear the spheres" Its obviously about Kurt Cobain who was a friend of the and but I not sure past that. Anybody know?

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
6. BFSSSS

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   May 25th 2008 !⃝

   This is pretty much about how california is everywhere, they're trying to explain that everybody looks at cali like a good place but is destroing the world in ways that anyone notice.and is not a sexual reference. "Californication" is really just the act of the world being affected and saturated by the art and the culture being born and raised in california.
   
   well only that.
7. anonymous

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   May 22nd 2008 !⃝

   Californication is about how new ideas are spreading through the world primarily starting in Hollywood (like in movies and such) reducing cultural taboos on subjects (like sex, etc.)
8. anonymous

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   Feb 4th 2008 !⃝

   I think the song is talking about how obsessed everyone had become with California and Hollywood, and how it isn't as great as it seems.
9. anonymous

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   Dec 10th 2007 !⃝

   The word Californication means "when a western civilization influences another place"
   
   I think this song is about how California influences the world..i agree about this..b because we are in the west n he talks of how everyone dreams of being in California and being famous and popular. It shows how fake people can be just to get to be famous.
10. anonymous

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    Nov 14th 2007 !⃝

    I'm the guy with the huge post before, and I don't really have time, but I have to correct something I wrote. When I was talking about the title of the song, I meant to type that it is not called Californiacation. Maybe that was edited out, but it's very important to the rest of my essay.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
11. anonymous

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    Nov 7th 2007 !⃝

    Alderon is a planet in the Star Wars movies. He is saying that the film studio or whatever isn't far away (becaue they are in Hollywood, where movies are filmed and whatever), but actually, the Star Wars movies were filmed in New Zealand

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
12. anonymous

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    Oct 25th 2007 !⃝

    Ok I think it's about how people around the world are looking at California as a great land of opportunity. The other idea is that the leaders in California are so independent from the rest of the world that they have their own separate ways of life. (note in the beginning of the video that California is its own island)

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13. anonymous

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    Oct 24th 2007 !⃝

    What is the part about first born unicorns?
14. anonymous

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    Sep 25th 2007 !⃝

    I think it is more than clear that Californication is a perfect picture of the global effects of capitalism. The progressive loss of criticism, the tendency to buy any innecessary object that is presented to us ("It's understood that Hollywood sells Californication","pay your surgeon very well to brake the spell of aging" ). In addition to that, it also shows the fascination that the system (in order to survive) creates towards what it can produce ("space may be the final frontier but its made in a hollywood basement"). Nowadays, fashion is more relevant (or it is given more relevancy by the media) than the fact that a million people have died in the Iraq invasion or that half of the world's population lives in unacceptable conditions. The distance poles between the richest and the poorest is growing bigger every hour. But still, here we are, those who work defending the interests of the big companies, why?
    "Born and raised by those who praise
    Control of population everybody's been there and
    I don't mean on vacation"
15. anonymous

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    Sep 3rd 2007 !⃝

    Uhh its obviously about the California way of life, space may be the final frontier but its made in a Hollywood basement, that's about the whole U.S going to the moon being a hoax, hardcore soft porn is about the pornography business in California,
    
    It’s the edge of the world
    And all of western civilization
    The sun may rise in the east
    At least it settles in a final location.
    
    ^^ This means the sun rises first in new york, and in the eastern u.s and it sets last in California
    
    Earthquakes, Pay your surgeon very well to break the spell of aging, that's about plastic surgery there's so many examples

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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