Dani California is one of Red Hot Chili Peppers biggest hits. It was released as the first single from their ninth studio album Stadium Arcadium on 28 April 2006, having already gotten its radio debut on 3 April, while the album it was on arrived on 5 May. It was a month of much new Chili Peppers music!
As of yet, Dani California is one of only three RHCP songs to become a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, peaking at #6. In addition, the song became the second one ever (after R.E.M.’s 1994 track What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?) to debut at #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart, and stayed there for 14 consecutive weeks. The song won two Grammy Awards (for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal). It is also their biggest UK hit alongside By the Way, both which peaked at #2 in the UK singles chart.
Like every other song on Stadium Arcadium, Dani California is credited to all four members of the band as the members were only meant to bring in ideas and every songs was finished by the group together. This was a change in approach from the previous album By the Way, where bass player Flea was displeased with what he felt was Frusciante dominating the songwriting. Stadium Arcadium saw the band on more even footing in the writing process.
The working title of the song was Wu-Tang because Smith’s drums sounded similar to those on the Wu-Tang Clan’s debut album Enter the Wu-Tang, though they ended up a bit closer to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama in the end.
Guitarist John Frusciante used various instruments and effects devices in order to achieve the textures and treatments used throughout the song, including Mellotron, Moog effect pedals, and a Doepfer modular synthesizer, used for the filtering and processing of pre-recorded tracks. Frusciante also began layering his guitar playing, something he had not embraced before.
The one-minute guitar solo at the end of the song is an adaption of Jimi Hendrix’s intro to Purple Haze, with the effects kept very close to the original.
The song laments the early death of Dani – a poor, young Southern girl who moved out to California, became a mother, and lived a hard, fast, unsettled life. The song narrates much of Dani’s life, starting with her birth in Mississippi and apparently culminating with her death in the badlands by a North Dakota policeman while en route to Minnesota. Vocalist and lyricist Anthony Kiedis has commented that the character of Dani is a composite of all the women with whom he has had relationships.
The interesting thing is that this is the third RHCP song to mention Dani. She is first referred to in the 1999 song Californication. Her name isn’t explicitly mentioned, but part of the lyrics are “Teenage bride with a baby inside / Getting’ high on information / And buy me a star on the boulevard, it’s Californication.”
She was next mentioned in the RHCP single By The Way (2002), which in part goes: “Standing in line to see the show tonight / And there’s a light on, heavy glow / By the way I tried to say I’d be there, waiting for / Dani the girl is singing songs to me / Beneath the marquee, overload.”
Kiedis commented: “When this funky groove came up it struck me as a perfect place to actually tell a story. It sort of revealed itself to me that it’s been the same character, just kind of developing. At first I didn’t realize that I was writing about the same girl.”
Controversy was however waiting in the wings, instigated by the Dan Gaffney Morning Show. This was a Delaware based news/talk radio station, and two of the station’s talk show hosts, Dan Gaffney and Jared Morris, questioned the originality of the song. They alleged that RHCP had plagiarised the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1993 hit Mary Jane’s Last Dance. They played audio snippets of both songs side by side, as well as simultaneously (i.e. on top of each other) several times, stating that the chord progression, key, and the lyrical theme of the songs showed “startling similarities.” The fact that Rick Rubin had been the producer for both songs was also debated. In the end, they urged listeners to “decide for themselves.”
The story would of course get some attention, and was also picked up by mainstream media. Many sided with the radio show, but several also spoke in RHCP’s defence, pointing out that although the chord progressions sound similar, they do in fact differ. Mary Jane’s Last Dance is in A Dorian mode, while Dani California is in A minor. University of Chicago musicologist Travis Jackson said the songs’ chord progressions were similar, but were a “pretty standard groove” in music and not necessarily evidence of copying.
Nonetheless, this prompted speculation that Petty would sue RHCP for plagiarism. Petty denied these rumours in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, saying “I seriously doubt that there is any negative intent there. And a lot of rock & roll songs sound alike. Ask Chuck Berry. The Strokes took American Girl (for their song Last Nite), and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, ‘OK, good for you.’ It doesn’t bother me. If someone took my song note for note and stole it maliciously, then maybe. But I don’t believe in lawsuits much. I think there are enough frivolous lawsuits in this country without people fighting over pop songs.”
This is a class comment by Petty, and no doubt truthful, but it would also turn out to be a smart one. It later emerged that the main riff in Petty’s song resembles that of a song by the Jayhawks called Waiting for the Sun, released in 1992. Ironically, The Jayhawks were the opening act for Petty’s tour in 1992, and to top if off, keyboardist Benmont Tench played on both Waiting for the Sun and Mary Jane’s Last Dance.
The Jayhawks certainly did not mind, taking a stance pretty similar to the one Petty also expressed. Finding similar riffs in rock’n’roll is, as Petty pointed out, after all not very hard.
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