Californication

Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind's elation

And little girls from Sweden dream of silver screen quotation

Pay your surgeon very well to break the spell of aging
Celebrity skin, is this your chin, or is that war you're waging?
First born unicorn
Hardcore soft porn

Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement
And Cobain, can you hear the spheres singing songs off Station To Station?
And Alderaan's not far away, it's Californication

Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement
And Cobain, can you hear the spheres singing songs off Station To Station?
And Alderaan's not far away, it's Californication

Den låten handlar om en enda (världslig) sak

In his autobiography Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis explained that he got the inspiration for the lyric from when he was in New Zealand and he heard a woman on the street ranting about psychic spies in China:

When I was in Auckland one time, I ran into a crazy lady on the street, and she was ranting about the feet that there were psychic spies in China. That phrase stuck in my mind, so when I was back home, I started writing and writing, and they became my favorite of all the lyrics that I’d collected over the last year.

Kiedis could also be a commenting on consumerism, with an increasing number of products now being manufactured in China. These lines may suggest that these “psychic spies" are somehow tapping into our mind’s desires, and greed for material goods. A scheme to steal everyone’s happiness is the type of conspiracy theory that someone who believes in psychic Chinese spies would believe in.

Those who dream of stardom and the silver screen have been infected with the myths and false promises Hollywood sells them – in other words, they’ve been “Californicated”.

Sweden has exported several hugely successful actresses, including Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, and Ann-Margret.

However, as the song later alludes to, for every mega-star there are hundreds of failures. And many of these Swedish girls dreaming of silver screen quotations end up with “hard core / soft porn” jobs where all the talent agent wants is a pretty body, and not a voice.

Also note the inclusion of China and Sweden in the opening lines of the song to highlight the global extent of Hollywood’s influence.

Kurt Cobain was the frontman of Nirvana who killed himself rather than deal with the “Californication” lifestyle. Following Kurt’s death, Nirvana’s drummer Dave Grohl became the lead singer of the Foo Fighters, a band named after unexplained spheres of light found behind U.S. planes in WW2.

Nirvana covered “The Man Who Sold The World” by David Bowie in the MTV Unplugged recorded shortly before Kurt’s death. So the Foos doing songs from Bowie’s album Station to Station would be a fitting tribute (although they had done with Bowie himself another song). Put this all together, and you get Anthony asking his former friend Kurt if he can hear his old bandmates playing songs for him in his memory.



This is also a possible reference to Musica universalis, or “the music of the spheres”, a concept that describes everything in the universe being in perfect harmony. While this may seem like a reach, it explains the inexplicable appearance of the Mona Lisa while this line is sung in the music video, as Renaissance artist were highly influenced by the concept.

On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
Head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
"This could be heaven or this could be hell"
Then she lit up a candle
She showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
Thought I heard them say
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place), such a lovely face
There's plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year), oh, you can find it here
Her mind is Tiffany twisted
She got the Mercedes Benz, uh
She got a lot of pretty-pretty boys
Who she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget
So I called up the captain
Please bring me my wine, he said
"We haven't had that spirit here since 1969"
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place), such a lovely face
We're living it up at the Hotel California
Oh, what a nice surprise (what a nice surprise), bring your alibis
Mirrors on the ceiling
With pink champagne on ice, and she said
"We are all just prisoners here of our own device"
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast
Stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
Had to find the passage back to the place I was before
"Relax", said the night man
"We are programmed to receive"
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave