My Top 100, No. 48: "Soul to Squeeze" by Red Hot Chili Peppers

I got into rock music seriously for the first time when I was entering ninth grade, and throughout high school, three bands stood out above all others for me: U2, Bush and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

 

My tastes evolved over time, as everyone's do, so this is the only song by any of those bands that makes the Top 100, but had I made this list when I was 16 or 17, "Soul to Squeeze" would have been an easy No. 1.

The biggest musical impact RHCP had on me was driving home the potential of the bass guitar in a standard three- or four-piece band. On the one hand, I was exposed to and influenced by a lot of pop punk, in which the bass is pretty much only a medium for running eighth notes, but on the other hand there were the Chili Peppers, who had Flea, one of the great rock bassists of his generation.

Of course, they didn't just have Flea, they had (intermittently), John Frusciante, who spent 1991 writing and recording magnificent expansions on basic chord progressions, both in "Soul to Squeeze" and "Under the Bridge," which is probably my second-favorite Chili Peppers song.

But Flea was what lifted the Chili Peppers into superstardom. As the Chili Peppers evolved from funk to more straightforward alt-rock, Flea continued the lay down just disgusting bass licks that kept one foot in the funk arena, while on their more mellow songs, Flea served as a secondary lead guitarist, either allowing Frusciante to freelance in the upper registers or working off the lead guitar line like a June Carter-Johnny Cash duet. 

Experiencing a bass that worked in countermelodies and steered the ship--instead of just holding down the tempo and the lower register--was like seeing in color for the first time, and that a profound impact on me as a musician and as a consumer of music. 

So for as perfectly as "Soul to Squeeze" nails the sweet spot where Anthony Keidis can actually sing without overextending him, and as memorable as the lyrics and opening guitar solo are, and as much as I love the crescendo into the first verse, the bass line is the real moneymaker in this song. It's my favorite thing in Flea's arsenal, and the backbone of one of my 50 favorite songs of all time.