What does Dosed mean?

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Dosed Meaning

Album cover for Dosed album cover
Get "Dosed" on MP3: Get MP3 from iTunes

Dosed Lyrics

I got dosed by you and
Closer than most to you and
What am I supposed to do
Take it away I never had it anyway
Take it away and everything will be okay
In you a star is born and
You cut a perfect form and
Someone forever warm
Lay on lay...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    cotyford
    click a star to vote
    Sep 24th 2007 !⃝

    Thank god for that last submission...has no one ever read scar tissue? look people, I love the chili peppers I've meet keidis and flea and in no way shape or form is the song about hillel. The song is about a girl he met that dies of a drug overdose (I think) that he fell madly in love with (his first) and never had the chance to say it. READ THE BOOK

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 7th 2013 !⃝

    its about hillel.

    the only confusion is the word she, she refers to his drug addiction. he went away with some friends in the mountains to kick heroin. rehab wasnt working for him then, much later he had a successful rehab with the subject of venice queen (another story).

    read the damn book "scar tissue"

    way up on the mountain where she died (the drug addiction)

    all i ever wanted was your life (hillel)

    deep inside the canyon i cant hide (from his addiction)

    its deliberately vague, music and lyrics are supposed to be open to get your own meaning from and make it mean something to you, otherwise its just noise.

    but to me if you read scar tissue the meaning is apparent :)

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 22nd 2007 !⃝

    It's about a girl he used to know that died and he loved her but never got a chance to tell her and that's why he says "take it away I never had it anyway" and he means take away your love I never had it anyway meaning her love for him. remember "way up on the mountain were she died all I ever wanted was your life" because he wanted her to live so he could tell her that he loved her. Maybe that girl didn't actually die she just died in his head.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 31st 2023 !⃝

    The term dosed is a direct reference to methadone, the drug used to treat people with a heroin addiction. Everyday they have to take their “dose”. Most often this dose has to be taken at a methadone clinic or pharmacy, so getting your daily dose is referred to as getting “dosed”

    So I got dosed by you is literally saying you gave me my drugs/what I needed to survive.

    Not all doses of methadone need to be supervised, some days a patient is given “take away” doses that they can have at home.

    Whilst I can’t speak to the entire song meaning I know for a fact that these terms are directly linked with methadone.

  5. Donnamarie
    click a star to vote
    Dec 13th 2021 !⃝

    Dosed has been a go to song for me..MY 19yr old son passed from a HEROIN od...I myself have struggled with my own demons since...I have not been able to express the emptiness an devastation I feel in my soul...this song says so much..I think Anthony left the interpretation to each of us...I think the ONE thing we can all agree on is that the song is about one's heart an soul being HURT ALMOST TO THE POINT OF DESTRUCTION..DOES ANYONE KNOW WHO THE GIRL IN THE ONE VIDEO IS WITH THE LONG BLONDE HAIR...THE VIDEO IS SO SIMPLE BUT SAYS SO VERY MUCH...

  6. Shakoteki
    click a star to vote
    Jul 16th 2021 !⃝

    unrequited love.

    that's all i hear.

  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 7th 2021 !⃝

    Interpretation....blah blah blah. What dosed goes me is my daughter. No one will ever have her, she’s a lost soul but I got closer than anyone else ever will.

  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 23rd 2018 !⃝

    Dosed by Red Hot Chili Peppers, great voice. The latest comment, explained their thoughts about this song.

    For me, it can also be about a guy who is out of your reach, out of your league, and you can never have him.

    For girls, they might or have been in love with this kind of guy too.

    Either if only as a friend, you want this guy to share his life with you, but it will never happen.

    You know he has a life, but he will never share it with you. He has a world of his own.

    I guess this experiences have been experienced by many people.

    - Same person who made comments recently

  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 23rd 2018 !⃝

    I would like to clarify my interpretation of the line where he sings "Take it away I never had it anyway." I see this as a girl he fell madly in love with, but he knows she's out of reach, or out of his league, and he can never have her. In other words, take his feelings for her away from him because he never had her anyway. He's accepted the outcome. "Take it away and everything will be ok." When he asks that his feelings for her be taken away, he knows he will no longer have to suffer inside or feel sorry for himself, and eventually everything will be ok because he feels he will be able to move beyond it.

  10. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 9th 2018 !⃝

    Dosed means blessed so red is not only a color in need its if you love to get dosen in red.

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 17th 2018 !⃝

    I'm Going with The Fake Narcissistic Evil Twisted Love, Because Right Now After 5 Years, Even When He Said He loved Me HE LIED....And That Hurts More Than Anything!!! ....Looking Back I've Never Had One Single Caring Day From Him, Shared Himself All over The Internet To Cheap easy Skanks And making me believe I was Really Special....Asked Me to Marry Him ...I Was The Happiest Woman in The World!!! But He was Messaging An Ex Shag and Trying to convince Her We Had Broken up!! JUST AN HOUR AFTER ASKING ME TO MARRY HIM.....I HAVE NEVER HAD ANYTHING .... Thing is I'm The Broken one On the Mountain .... Paul Victor Young ... The Only Spineless Evil Human Born With A Void For A Heart ..... PLEASE JUST TAKE HIM AWAY.... IVE NEVER HAD HIM ANYWAY!!! (Every Skank In Potters Bar Seems To have Had Though)

  12. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 23rd 2018 !⃝

    I hope it's about a lost love because I can relate to it,I knew a girl from another country we shared a house together for two years and become really close friends after two years we date for a month, but she goes back home because im non committal and I start seeing someone else, then out of the blue she turns up, we have a one night stand and she becames pregnant,and she has an abortion,we stay in contact and I travel to her country to persuade us to get married anyway, which she agrees but she changes her mind and we never see each other again even though we loved each other very much, I think about her with a heavy heart and wished that I could show her how much she meant to me

  13. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 4th 2018 !⃝

    For me it is about marriage of an empath (who shows love with no remorse and believed in the relationship) to a narcissist who is finally approaching the discard phase. The empath knows it is coming but is to broken after years of devaluing to end things first. Take it away I never had it anyway. Take it away and everything will be OK.

  14. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 31st 2017 !⃝

    This song was written for Hillel Slovak, previous guitarist for band who died of an overdose. The song makes many references to drug use. Read Scartissue (Anthony Kiedis' autobiography), the song had nothing to do with abortion or a girl. One of the most haughtinly beautiful songs...

  15. TitaniumTomcat
    click a star to vote
    Jan 7th 2015 !⃝

    It's about abortion, see notes below:

    I got dosed by you and
    (a reference to the mother taking poison to kill the fetus)
    Closer than most to you and
    (the closest anyone can get to another person is to be in their mothers womb)
    What am I supposed to do
    (the hopelessness of the fetus situation)
    Take it away I never had it anyway
    (the mothers view that once it’s gone she can pretend the baby never existed)
    Take it away and everything will be okay

    In you a star is born and
    You cut a perfect form and
    Someone forever warm
    (the child feels originally safe secure and that the mother will be a place of warmth forever)

    Lay on lay on lay on lay on
    Lay on lay on lay on lay on
    Way upon the mountain where she died
    All I ever wanted was your life
    Deep inside the canyon I can't hide
    (even though the fetus is deep inside the mother it can’t hide)
    All I ever wanted was your life
    (all the baby ever wanted was to be part of the mother’s life)

    Show love with no remorse and
    Climb on to your seahorse and
    (imagery is suggestive of the unborn fetus which looks like a seahorse in water)
    This ride is right on course
    (the babies life seems to be all planned out)
    This is the way I wanted it to be with you (as if the the baby is imagining the life she could have had with its mother)
    This is the way I knew that it would be with you

    Lay on lay on lay on lay on
    Lay on lay on lay on lay on
    Way upon the mountain where she died
    All I ever wanted was your life
    Deep inside the canyon I can't hide
    All I ever wanted was your life

    I got dosed by you and
    Closer than most to you and
    What am I supposed to do
    Take it away I never had it anyway
    Take it away and everything will be okay

    Way upon the mountain where she died (dying on a mountain symbolizes holding a position at all costs, which is fitting considering the fetus has no other place to go)
    All I ever wanted was your life
    Deep inside the canyon I can't hide
    All I ever wanted was your life

  16. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 1st 2014 !⃝

    Its about a guy who truly loved and had faith in their relationship. But she had an affair and thought it would be looked over with no repercussions. She had no remorse and therefore,there was no room for forgiveness yet, in her spiritless lethargy she wanted him to just forget it and act as if it never happened. Her thought was totally absurd, she carried out the affair showing herself not to be the woman she had portrayed, thusly, there never was pure love and the woman he had thought died, never being alive in the first place. He could not hide deep in the mountain, so take it away, never had it anyway. Living in reality and not in an absurd charade of some ill fated child.

  17. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jun 11th 2014 !⃝

    @HarrisonPoltorak

    Well , i fucking hate DUMBFUCKS like you teaching people about music , you are a fucking idiot , and that is for sure.

    here's a thought for you people - NOT EVERYTHING ABOUT THE RHCP IS RELATED TO DRUGS

    Dosed is one of the most beautiful songs ever , and i agree about the abortion part for 99% , "Take it away i never had it anyway" , "lay on lay on lay on" is what you sing to a baby , "this is the way i wanted it to be with you" he is singing this song to an unborn baby , NOT TO HILLEL SLOVAK

    and John Frusciante's singing here is probably the best one he ever did on a RHCP song

  18. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 24th 2013 !⃝

    I dont know too much about the band except that I love their songs, so I dont want to get too involved here except to say that Dosed is not the song with the gasoline/wolverine lines, so please get that straight before you start having a go at people and getting aggressive about who the true fans are - none of you if you cant remember which songs are which!

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