“Give It Away”
by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
from the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik
1991
Buy the album on Amazon

This song sweats, that’s all there is to it.  Even before Stéphane Sednaouie‘s gorgeous video confirmed it, the song had that dessert sun feeling to it.  It’s just stanky and funky.  I’ve performed this at karaoke a few times and it’s an exhausting song to sing.  The structure is relentless and punishing – there’s never a chance to catch your breath.   If you put it in the car and crank it and you’ll be excited for whatever adventure you’re driving towards, guaranteed.  It’s totally a summer party anthem.   Speaking of, this song brings to mind a very specific summer memory.

One summer afternoon during high school, we loaded up my car and decided to drive the 22 miles necessary to get to the nearest movie theater.  We were cranking the tunes and just ripping on each other like four dudes in a car are want to do and were definitely driving too fast as well.  “Give It Away” was cranking on the radio, right around the part where Kiedis was singing:

Bob Marley poet and a prophet
Bob Marley taught me how to off it
Bob Marley walkin’ like he talk it
Goodness me can’t you see I’m gonna cough it

We were all in the middle of yelling Bob Marley when the car caught massive air as it launched over a rail road track and almost, almost ended up in a ditch.  We didn’t land in that ditch because of my amazing driving skills, but for the rest of school when referring to a wreck of a situation, the code word was Bob Marley.  Like if we were referring to a girl that we couldn’t stand, she was a total Bob Marley. Other variations followed… if you were kind of into her, but something just didn’t seem right – she was a Ziggy Marley.  So a great summer jam whose lyrics gave us some great high school slang… winner!