The song I'm going to write about in my paper is the song "Californication" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. What intrigues me most about this song is that I do not know exactly what the Chili Peppers are saying about California, even though the song has hundreds of plays in my iTunes library. I know a little bit about what the song's saying...It talks about how self absorbed and fake California is, but it doesn't have the absolute negative view of this aspect of California that some songs, articles, etc. have about it. It more says, "This is what California is. It's a unique place, but if what you want is the beautiful people, plastic surgery, Hollywood obsession, California is the place to be." It also implies that California is exactly what most people dream about, which might be the Chili Peppers trying to make a blanket statement about Americans in general.
I just talked about several different things about the song that could initiate my paper's thesis, and I'm sure there is much more to the song then I've realized so far. That is why this song is so intriguing to me, and why I chose it for my paper - I don't know what I think about this song, and I don't know what the Chili Peppers are trying to say here. Lines like, "Psychic spies from China/Try to steal your mind elation/Little girls from Sweden/Dream of silver screen quotations" confuse the heck out of me, and I'm hoping that this assignment will help me figure out both what I think about this song, and a deeper level of what the Chili Peppers are trying to say.
