Californication

It was one of the hardest songs for the band to complete. Frusciante struggled to write a guitar part that matched the lyrics, and the song was close to being dropped until Kiedis urged the band to keep it. Frusciante finished the final riff two days before recording, with inspiration from the Cure's Carnage Visors. Greg Kurstin plays keyboards. The lyrics describe Californian life and the fake side of Hollywood, and they mention Kurt Cobain.

It came out as a single in June 2000 and reached number one on the Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock charts, number 69 on the Hot 100 and number 16 in the UK. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris directed a video in the form of a fictional open-world video game, and it reached a billion views on YouTube on December 5, 2022. Kerrang! put the song first in its 2021 list of the band's best, and Kerrang! and Rolling Stone have both named it their best.