Slow Cheetah

The line, "Any other day and I might play a funeral march for Bonnie Brae," indicates that this may be a song about heroin use, since the corner of Bonnie Brae and 6th Street is where singer Anthony Kiedis would go to buy heroin, as told in his autobiography, Scar Tissue. Also, the line, "Slow Cheetah come, it's so euphoric, no matter what they say," may refer to the euphoric feeling one gathers from a heroin high, as Anthony always described it.

Anthony Kiedis had the song title in his notebook for a year before he started writing the song. He didn't know what it was about until he started writing and singing along to some music guitarist John Frusciante was playing. "It kinda revealed itself," Kiedis told Classic Rock magazine. "The cheetah in this song is symbolic for life, but also for the female. It's about that beautiful feeling when life becomes slow motion, and all of the chaos and all of the distraction fades away for a moment and you can see things very clearly. It kind of quiets the heart, and in that instant you get a real sense of purpose."

In the album commentary, Flea, RCHP's bassist, calls this tune a perfect 10 because it's slow enough to really hear the lyrics and contrasts the frenzy that goes on in his own mind. "There's nothing I love more than slowing down," he said. "Like everything's so fast in my mind, when it slows down I get so happy. And the image of something that's fast and powerful, I just have the image of this slow-motion cheetah running through the Serengeti in its full stride, like it would go with its muscles rippling and its beautiful coat, but so slow, like in slo-mo - but not slowed down by a film, like doing it in this magic slowness, and it's an incredible image."