Detroit

The Chili Peppers pay tribute here to Michigan's largest city. Both vocalist Anthony Kiedis and drummer Chad Smith hail from the state.

Kiedis gives a nod here to two of Detroit's musical exports, The Stooges and J Dilla, as well as Henry Ford who was pre-eminent in establishing the city during the early 20th century as the world's automotive capital. Chad Smith said in a track by track commentary: "I grew up in Detroit; from Detroit, Michigan and couldn't be happier. When we had that song, Josh (Klinghoffer, guitar) came in with that riff and one more of our rock-ish numbers and, when he started singing about Detroit, I'm like: 'What? J Dilla, Funkadelic, what, Stooges, Henry Ford?' I was like, what is he singing about? And chorus comes and I'm like: 'This is great!' It's a love letter to Detroit; such an important city and it's gone through some obviously rough times, everybody knows that. And I'm very pleased because I love Michigan, I love Detroit, I grew up there, it's such an important part of my everything, you know, my school, and I played in bands for years out of high school and my mother lives in the house I grew up in, so I go back there and visit all the time and I support all of my Detroit sports teams, even the sad Lions. Yeah, it's a real love letter to Detroit and it's fun to play live."

A few Detroit fun facts from The Encyclopedia of Trivia: Detroit was founded on July 24, 1701, by the French explorer and adventurer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac. Detroit residents were the first to be assigned phone numbers in 1879. The Ford Motor Company made Detroit into a boom town. In the first 20 years of the 20th century the city's size quadrupled. The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begun operations in 1920 in Detroit. Detroit News was the first newspaper to list daily radio programs. The government of Detroit, with up to $20 billion in debt, filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history on July 18, 2013. Here is a list of songs with Detroit in the title.