O SOMBRIO significado de Otherside: Decifrando o hit de Red Hot Chili Peppers

If you have good taste in music, you will definitely recognize these notes. But you may not know that behind the lyrics and the dark clip full of symbolism there is a real story of pain and suffering that caused the death of one of the group's members, and that still today threatens the band Today I'm going to reveal to you the story behind Otherside, by Red Hot Chili Peppers I'm Guilherme, and you're on DecifraHITS Released as the third single from the album Californication in the song Otherside, Red Hot used several symbols and metaphors to expose a terrible battle that had already taken the life of one of the group's members and threatened to do the same to the rest: drug addiction. To understand the video and lyrics of Otherside, we need to know the band members' problematic past with drugs.

Since the birth of Red Hot in the early 80s, the band has been marked not only by its lively sound, but also by its intense drug abuse. In his autobiography, 'Scar Tissue' (2004) Anthony Kiedis says that he smoked weed for the first time at the age of 12, with his father. Just 2 years later, Anthony had his first experience with hero*** As the years went by passing and Red Hot was growing, the vocalist's addiction became an increasingly heavy burden, reaching the point where Kiedis was expelled from his own band by producer Michael Beinhorn in '87, who only allowed the vocalist to return after he cleaned himself up in rehabilitation Another member who also fought for years against addiction was guitarist Hillel Slovak, who unfortunately lost this battle after suffering an overdose in '88, at the age of 26.

According to Anthony Kiedis, this episode marked the band's lowest point: "My best friend died (. . .

) and it definitely destroyed me emotionally" "But I continued using (hero***) anyway" "Until it got to a point where drugs and alcohol could no longer turn off the noise in my head" At this point, at the age of 27, Kiedis used the last 10 thousand dollars from his account to enter a rehabilitation clinic, which probably saved his life. Still in '88, Slovak was replaced by another great guitarist: the young John Frusciante, who unfortunately didn't know deal very well with fame and ended up succumbing to the same addiction as Slovak, reaching the point where he was no longer able to perform at shows and ended up leaving the band in '92. Just like Kiedis and Slovak, Frusciante sank into the consumption of narcotics, which got worse with as the years passed and John was already beginning to show signs of being close to his end, bassist Flea (with whom John never lost contact) tried for years to convince his friend to seek treatment but he only decided to seek help at the beginning of '98, after suffering 5 overdoses Fortunately, John also recovered and a few months later, he managed to return to the group to work on Red Hot's next album: 'Californication', an album that marked the rebirth of the Californian band that, until then, had been in a bit of a bad state.

We've even told this story in this video where we decipher the album's title track And one of the first songs the band wrote when they got together again was the song 'Otherside' which summed up this whole dark situation that had been haunting the band for years In an interview, Frusciante revealed that it is his favorite song on the album as it has enormous emotional meaning for him And he added that the lyrics concern the intense battle between the conscious and the subconscious In the lyrics of 'Otherside' we see a dark narrative that is very similar to Anthony Kiedis and John Frusciante's journey against addiction but which also serves as a tribute to the late guitarist Hillel Slovak And we can see the similarities in the first verses of the song: "How long, how long will I slide? " "Separate my side? " Anthony may have gone off the deep end, but like every drug addict, he knows that just one slip is enough for him to end up succumbing again to the addiction that distances him from his rational side.

In fact, Kiedis consumed so much narcotics that he reached a point where use became a natural part of his routine and he could no longer see dependence as a bad thing, which he makes clear in the verse: "No, I don't believe it's a bad thing" In the midst of so much anguish and difficulty, he thinks several times about doing a terrible thing that, just as he never finishes the sentence, he never puts into practice Probably due to the fact that there is still a small dose of sanity and hope in him that prevents him from doing the worst "Slit my thro**, it's all I ever (. . .

)" As the song progresses, he also makes several references to his late friend Hillel Slovak as if Anthony, looking at an old photograph, remembered the old times with the friend who never managed to return to a normal life after giving in to addiction "I heard your voice through a photograph" "I thought it up and brought up the past" "Once you know you can never go back" In the book Scar Tissue, Anthony talks a little about Slovak's death saying that he was so shaken that he didn't even manage to go to the funeral. Instead, he decided to go to Hawaii to cleanse himself of drugs and drown his grief in the crystal clear seas of that place which in this song he mentions as “a cemetery where I married the sea” In fact, just as that experience with nature was essential for Anthony Kiedis to move forward, making videos like this one is only possible thanks to your company and your like, so click the like button so that this video reaches other people who , like you, also appreciate good music The lyrics continue to portray the dark journey now telling about the painful detox process that Kiedis and Frusciante went through "I pour my life into a paper cup" "The ashtray's full and I'm spillin' my guts" Normally, in rehabilitation centers the medicines used for treatments are served in small paper cups. Some of these centers also allow patients to smoke as this would make the process more bearable especially in the withdrawal phase, where vomiting is a very common symptom.

In the next verses, we see the protagonist being strongly seduced by the drug who is now a character in the plot, represented by a red star "She wanna know am I still a slut" "A scarlet starlet and she's in my bed" "Push the trigger and pull the thread" He clearly ends up giving in to the seduction of drugs since “pulling the string” is a reference to the application by injection While the expression “pull the trigger” refers to something that could end his life Before John Frusciante's beautiful solo, the song enters a dense and heavy interlude, which represents the effect of the drug at its peak, and of course, its terrible consequences: "Turn me on, take me for a hard ride" "Burn me out, leave me on the other side" "I yell and tell it that it's not my friend" "I tear it down, I tear it down and then it's born again" As much as the drug takes you to ecstasy it ends up taking everything from you and leaving you “on the other side” that is, in the beyond Here it is clear that the inspiration for the song's name is nothing more than the final result in the journey of drug abuse: own death. And just like the lyrics, the music video for 'Otherside' is also full of references and symbolisms that connect with the central theme of the song. In it, we see a city without colors, caricatured and disproportionate in a scenario that can be considered as a nightmare for the protagonist.

The clip begins with the main character fallen into an abyss, with large red wings broken The character, who by the way, closely resembles Hillel Slovak appears to be on the verge of death The red wings represent a fundamental element for his tragic end that later you will understand He begins to see his life passing before his eyes remembering the dark path that led him to that point First he remembers being in an ambulance, being rushed to the hospital Once there, the doctors put an oxygen mask on him, at which point he ended up blacking out, and being sent directly to the world of the subconscious where his biggest problems are revealed through frightening representations. In his unconscious, the character fights desperately against his own addiction represented by a giant monster that breathes fire. Finding himself unable to defeat his addiction, he tries to escape through a staircase but soon realizes that is in a labyrinth where all the exits lead to the same place.

This can represent the distressing situation of many addicts who try to find a way out in other activities but often end up finding triggers that take them back into the labyrinth of addiction. Meanwhile, the band members they wear black, as if they were in mourning and appear in distorted representations of their roles in the band: Chad Smith appears playing the drums on a clock, since the drummer is responsible for keeping the song's time, Flea appears playing on high voltage wires once that he represents all the energy of the band Anthony Kiedis appears serene and intoning the verses with calm, very different from the bouncing and expressive persona we see in other Red Hot clips. Finally, Frusciante appears playing a single giant string as he represents the guiding thread that unites the band's sound Eventually, the protagonist manages to find the exit but along the way, he is placed before his last and most difficult challenge: This painting with a female face and only one eye represents the illusion and the big lips red represent the dangerous seduction of drugs.

He even looks at the stairs and thinks about continuing to climb, but he is soon seduced by that trap and from then on he is forced to face his own shadow that comes out from under his feet and starts to fight against him. We have already explained in the Stairway To Heaven video that the shadow represents the negative aspects of our personality, according to psychologist Carl Jung. This shows that, often, your biggest enemy can be yourself Unfortunately, the character gives up fighting against himself, and gives in to the seduction of drugs At first, that seems to work very well He ran away from his problems, and now he flies happily above everything and everyone Until a giant crow arrives and begins to attack him mercilessly Symbolically, the crow is the representation of death which, as in the lyrics of the song, is the only result of the drug path.

Finally, the crow knocks the protagonist off a cliff, from which he falls helplessly, until he reaches the abyss: his end. The final scene is the same as what we see at the beginning, symbolizing the endless cycle of addiction with the search for the peak of momentary pleasure followed by the abyss into which it sinks you, resulting in yet another frustrated attempt to escape addiction Well, because it's a band that usually has such lively and vibrant songs You may have never imagined that Red Hot brought such serious and dark themes in their songs, but yes, they do, and in an incredible way, just click on this video and you will understand what I'm talking about.