Balarama Music

Frusciante Friday: Going Inside For His Birthday

Mar 05

Doug2000s frusciante friday, john frusciante, red hot chili peppers No Comments

I love The Beatles as much as you guys, but I need some variety in what I’m covering here. Hopefully next week I’ll introduce some new bands to you guys like The Avett Brothers & Codeine Velvet Club. Today though, it seems to be the birthday of perhaps the greatest musician around today so let’s get to John Frusciante in one of my favorite parts of Balarama Music: Frusciante Friday Seeing how it is his birthday & how he’s left the Chili Peppers, I’ll honor that he wants to be on his own & cover a solo song of his. I still think some of his best material lies in that band, but it’s his birthday & he gets what he wants so let’s cover one of his finest songs: “Going Inside!”

Appearing on To Record Water For Only Ten Days, the genesis of “Going Inside” is a long-ride that I’ll try to briefly sum up here. Key word there: try. After the Peppers hit it big with Blood Sugar Sex Magik in the early 90s, the sudden success proved to be too much for Frusciante. He would later recall a conversation he had with the original guitarist for the Chili Peppers Hillel Slovak that would weigh on his mind in this time. Slovak asked: “Would you still like the Chilis if they got so popular they played the Forum?” Frusciante responded with: “No. It would ruin the whole thing. That’s great about the band, the audience feels no different from the band at all.” Hard to think about when playing to sold-out arenas in Japan. While recording the album, the band holed themselves up in the famed LA Mansion for the duration of the recording process, isolating Frusciante from the real world. What was waiting for him when he came out wasn’t the same world he left either. No, he came out to find the Peppers played on virtually every radio and selling out arenas worldwide. Interviews, television appearances, constant traveling; it’s a lot to expect of a guy who as a teenager spent his days just playing guitar in his house by himself virtually all day. So he quit and retreated to a life of quiet isolation that was haunted by drugs while bordering on becoming a recluse.

It was during this time that he released his first two solo albums: the double album Niandra Lades And Usually Just A T-Shirt in 1994 and Smile from the Streets You Hold in 1997. The recordings were a sharp turn from the music he made with the Peppers. Lo-fi recordings with cryptic lyrics, eerie guitar riffs, and devilish screeches, the music (even though some was not recorded while on drugs) represents the life that he was leading at the time. Extremely avant-garde, some fans find beauty in it while others (like myself) appreciate the music, but can see the potential yearning to break through out of most songs like “Head (Beach Arab).” A few years later, he had truly hit rock bottom and entered rehab at the behest of his friends. He came out of it a new man; not defined by his past life, but guided by it. As he joined the Chili Peppers and recorded the monumental Californication album, the world could see that not only was John Frusciante back, but he was better than ever. Now it was time for his new solo album.

Recorded during the tour for Californication, To Record Water For Only Ten Days was also a departure from his previous sound, but in my opinion, for the better. His album kept much of the same home-recording feel as his previous albums, but the avant-garde style & stream-of-consciousness lyrics seemed to be dropped from most of his work. Drawing influences from New Wave & electronica bands (such as New Order), Frusciante crafted an album that described who the newly re-born man was. Now known for his amazing singing voice, this album was the one to start him down that road. While not his best vocal work, it’s a sharp increase from his previous two works and the improvements he made here would continue on with his next album Shadows Collide With People, but that’s for another day. Here we have some haunting tracks and some amazingly beautiful, yet the album comes together to show a man who has survived the knock on death’s door and doesn’t regret it. Frusciante was much more in tune with what he calls “the spiritual plane” during the making of the album. He actually got the title of the album while being visited by one of these “spirits.” Suffice it to say, this was a bold album for Frusciante and one that really stood out at the time compared to his work with the Peppers & his previous albums.

The opening track on the album, “Going Inside,” is a strong declaration for Frusciante and perhaps one of the best opening tracks on an album ever. I can only think of a couple that are on the same level (one we will encounter in the Beatles countdown) and even this song might be better. It opens with what Frusciante does best: blare his guitar. A psychedelic-flavored song, it has a distinct guitar riff built around before each of the verses as well as an extremely memorable guitar solo. Like I’ve mentioned in the blog before, Frusciante is the master of crafting the tone of the lyrics into his solos and this is no exception. It’s almost as if he let out all the pain of his reclusion into a short burst of noise. The lyrics, as I’ve alluded to, actually don’t renounce his previous time, but show how strong they can make you as the opening lyrics say “You don’t throw your life away, Going inside.” It’s open to interpretation, but to me, that just seems to be a plea that it’s never wasting time by yourself discovering yourself. Later on, he delivers some of his best lyrical work in summing up his feelings as he states: “Where you go doesn’t matter cause there will come a time when time goes out the window. And you’ll learn to drive out of focus: I’m you. And if anything unfolds, it’s supposed to.” The song goes on in the same fashion delivering deep lyrics & great guitar works before wrapping up in an outro that really points you toward the mirror so you can look inside at yourself to see how you measure up.

I can talk all day about this song. It’s an amazing piece of rock music and one of the first songs I always play for people who ask me who John Frusciante is. Do yourself a favor and check out the song.

Song: Going Inside
Artist: John Frusciante
Album: To Record Water For Only Ten Days
Year: 2001

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