By the Way

I never had a favorite band before I was 17. I didn’t know what it really meant to relate to a song or group. It’s strange that, without knowing why, I craved to find a band, some music, in which to identify with.

During my time working as a janitor, I would bring my portable CD player every day and tear through my collection, looking for something to listen to during the hours I would be away from the main office. It was hard, because I knew what every CD I chose, I would be stuck listening to two or three times. After a while, I had listened to all my CD’s to death and couldn’t handle the repetition anymore. I flipped through my carrying case violently, looking for anything that I hadn’t listened to yet.

I found the CD behind another one, hidden because I had decided I didn’t really think I would like it. The album was given to me by a friend, who thought I would like the band. I took out the CD and listened to my first Red Hot Chili Peppers album.

My mind was blown.

Looking back, so many of those songs spoke of how I felt those days, as a 17 year old high school dropout, I was lost and looking for meaning. Some truth. Identity. The album, By the Way, sung to me songs that I felt I was trying to say myself, a collection I later described as “the soundtrack to my soul”. Melodramatic? Maybe. But, back then, so was life. Each song meant something in its own way, and formed a story of my views of girls, God, and life.

“By the Way”, the first and titular song of the album, has the energy I felt back then, this frustrated desire to break free and just run. At night, when everyone was asleep, I would still be up, wanting to see the world in a heavy glow of street lights and marquees. I felt, as if I was always waiting for something, that I would never be around for when it arrived.

“Universally Speaking” was the second song and took a much slower pace than the first one. It sang about love, something I only had a theory of back then, and it presented the emotion as extremely fragile. At that age, I knew it was truth and knew that I hadn’t found that experience yet and that I would want to, badly.

“This is the Place” always struck me hard to understand at the time, because it was filled with so many metaphors about drugs and sex. But, the chorus won me over, striking a cord with my problem with anger. I would sing along, knowing that I was like a powder keg at times, and this chorus would warn the world. It became even more relevant to me the day I was reading the last book of “The Sandman” by Neil Gaiman. This song came on and, combined with the surreal images of the comic and the abstract lyrics of Anthony Kiedis, I found the whole experience to fit, and make sense of both the story and song.

“Dosed” was a song I always found sad but beautiful and couldn’t relate to through my own experience. As I grew older and had my own relationships, I saw this song form a real meaning around my life. As those relationships ended “Dosed” became the music of those heartbreaks. I could finally understand what the words meant, and what it meant to feel that way about another person and. "Take it away, I never had it anyway." Sometimes, I think I preferred the song in my ignorance of the subject matter.

“Don’t Forget Me” was the song of choice for me on this album, if I could have a favorite at all. The guitar solo alone could have made this true, but, there was more. At 17, no longer in school or seeing my friends on a regular basis, working at a job where everyone was two generations older than I was, I felt the fear of being completely forgotten by the world. The song didn’t give me the resolution I felt I wanted, but, it spoke of my worries in a way I could relate to and find comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the only suffering from this fear.

“The Zephyr Song” was the first song I listened to on this album, because I had seen the music video one night while unable to sleep. The video was one of those psychedelic scenes, full of symmetry and exaggerated images. But, as I sat there at night, listening to the tune and the lyrics, I didn’t feel like the song was too “trippy”. If I could have gotten away from life, lived forever, like the singer, I would have at any moment.

“Can’t Stop” is a faster, funkier song but it was actually the song that made me think the most of God. During those days, I didn’t know I felt about religion or faith, and I had really wandered away from the idea of being a Christian. Even so, I couldn’t shake the presence of God from my life, and I wondered why this was. The phrase, “ever wonder if it’s all for you?” said it all and every time this came on, I would stop and look around, trying to convince myself that the world wasn’t made by God and wasn’t all for me.

“I Could Die for You” was another love song about something I didn’t feel I had experienced yet but it gave me an idea of what I wanted. I’ve often been accused of being in love with love and I think that this whole album could be to blame. As I’ve gotten older, I gained a healthier view of relationships and love, but the effects are still there.

“Midnight” described my friends and I, or at least, how I viewed us. We were “the lotus kids” and the world better “have taken note of this” as I knew the four of us would make any scene worth being in. There was something about this song that made hanging out with my friends seem more important and (forgive me for bringing up a dead word) more epic.

“Throw Away Your Television” was all I could think about as I worked the same job, every day, doing the same assignments. I just wanted to throw away all of this away, and stop experience this repeat of my so-called life.

The next song I won’t comment on because I thought it was a love song, but later found out it was a Spanish swear word and has left me confused on how to interpret the song then and now. Either way, if it was a love song, I suffered from all the same issues as before.

“Tear” became the song that described my feeling of being alone and not wanting to live that life forever. There was the idea that I was spending my time by myself, which had a powerful meaning to me, as if being alone made me feel less so. Yet, at the same time, I needed to get out of this self-exiled position I had placed myself in. Contradicting, but it made sense to a moody existential teenager.

“On Mercury” was one of those songs that I loved but made realize that the band was definitely influenced by drugs. It always made me somewhat uneasy how much they had this element going, and how much I felt like I related to it. I have never done drugs in my life, but, somehow, I almost understood what they were saying. What really made me think was the idea of memories and how we manipulate them to fit our reality. I still don’t understand it.

“Minor Thing” was just an extremely melodic song, and still is. I had really enjoyed the concept of difficult and hard tasks becoming minor things for someone who knows how to readjust a situation. When I was younger (and even now) I always wanted to be that guy that walks into a situation and helps calm it down; the Aragorn, Batman, or Han Solo of life. I never was (and even now), but this songs reminds me of that desire every time.

“Warm Tape” really hit me because, at the time, I was in deep thought of my own mortality. I think of death and become worried beyond belief. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live forever, even if it meant walking a world where all my friends and family were gone. I would listen to this song and imagine what it would be like, to be the only one left, and think of the meaningless of that kind of existence. “Miles and miles of every world I roam, settle for love, I’m never far from home.” I could run and run in hope of immortality, but, in the end, I would never be happy without others. Friendship became very important to me when this song played through my headphones.

“Venice Queen” was a song I often skipped, even though it was very good song. I never understood its real meaning and it was split into two songs. The second half was much more likable to me, as I could follow its story much better. The idea that there was someone out there that I wanted to tell I loved, but couldn’t, gave the brooding teenage Eric something to think of when it came to girls and my lack of initiative with them. It didn’t change my awkwardness with them, but it gave me something to think about afterward.

Looking back like this, it’s hard to believe that I was ever so moody or subjective about life. I was going to have “Warm Tape” played at my funeral, “By the Way” described the bohemian life I was going to have in the big city I never moved to, my friends would always be memorialized through “Midnight” even if we never went to parties or caused trouble in the streets. It may be one of those right time, right place albums, but it will always mean more than that to me. This album, these songs, were as I said before, the soundtrack to my soul.

17 is a weird age.