Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - Red Hot Chili Peppers and "Soul To Squeeze"
Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - Red Hot Chili Peppers and "Soul To Squeeze"
"Soul To Squeeze" is exactly the kind of introspective slow jam you want headlining the soundtrack to a movie about cone-headed aliens
Red Hot Chili Peppers - “Soul To Squeeze”
Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 5 total weeks (August 14 to September 4, 1993; and then again the week ending September 25, 1993)
Previous Modern Rock Tracks chart #1 hit: Tears For Fears - “Break It Down Again”
Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:
UB40 - “(I Can't Help) Falling in Love with You” (7 total weeks, 7/24/93 to 9/4/93)
Mariah Carey - “Dreamlover” (9/25/93)
Movie soundtracks used to be a really big deal. In the 1980s and 1990s especially, blockbuster hit singles would go hand in hand with movie releases, often synergistically catapulting each art form to the top of their respective charts. I think of songs like “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds highlighting the “Breakfast Club” soundtrack, or Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” getting a massive sales boost thanks to all the “Titanic” movie-goers. I’m sure if you peruse the Hot 100 #1 hits from the ‘80s and ‘90s, a not-insignificant number of them will be attached to a movie or TV show from that time (looking at you, Jan Hammer).
Odds are good that, if you enjoy the content I produce in this Substack newsletter, you have a favorite soundtrack from the ‘80s and/or ‘90s. (One of my favorites is the soundtrack to “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” but that’s just off the top of my head. I really dig that R.E.M. cover of Tommy James’ “Draggin’ The Line.”) I’d wager the odds are also pretty good that your favorite soundtrack was NOT the soundtrack to the motion picture “Coneheads,” the Dan Aykroyd/Jane Curtin joint based on a “Saturday Night Live” sketch from the ‘70s set in the early ‘90s.
Honestly, there’s some good stuff on that soundtrack. I really love Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome,” a track that I think gained a bit of an airplay boost because of this movie. Of course, there’s also the bad, like future Modern Rock Tracks chart #1 artist Barenaked Ladies doing a cover of NWA’s “Fight The Power.” But really, in our heart of hearts, when we think of the greatness of the movie “Coneheads,” the song that obviously comes to mind is “Soul To Squeeze,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ introspective ode to introspection, mental demons, and almost certainly something to do with drug use.
This song makes no sense on this soundtrack. But it did provide a vehicle for the band to notch their second Modern Rock Tracks #1 hit, while also providing a bridge between 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik and 1995’s One Hot Minute.
RHCP was a band in transition when “Soul To Squeeze” was released. John Frusciante, the band’s lead guitarist and driver of many of the songs on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, departed the band during an international tour promoting that album. Frusciante descended deeper into a world of isolation and drug addiction throughout the rest of the ‘90s, and RHCP eventually turned to Dave Navarro to fill in for Frusciante. Navarro, of course, was freshly relieved of his duties with former and future MRT chart #1 artist Jane’s Addiction, who’d broken up by this point.
We’ll talk more about Navarro’s time with the band when we eventually discuss the chart-topping hit off One Hot Minute, but for now it’s enough to know that the band was cycling between guitarists but still had this gem of a single from the Blood Sugar Sex Magik sessions to share with the listening public.
Enter the “Coneheads” soundtrack.
I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded of the iconic scene in that movie that features “Soul To Squeeze.” It’s the one where Chris Farley’s character Ronnie puts the moves on Connie Conehead, who is wowed by Ronnie’s earnest plea that he loves her for being “different from the other girls.” While they prepare for a makeout session involving “sensor rings” placed on top of the cone of the conehead’s head, the dulcet sounds of RHCP’s “Soul To Squeeze” are playing in the background.
RHCP, for their part, had to somehow create a music video that shoehorns in some reference to cone-headed people. The band chose not to go the route of promoting the movie through the music video, but instead went back to its black-and-white-video roots and did a grainy montage of sequences from an old-timey traveling circus. Featured among the circus freaks is a lonely cone-headed person.
As improbable as it seems, this connection between two seemingly disparate things managed to work out well, at least for the band. The music video was in heavy rotation on MTV, and the song managed to sit atop the Modern Rock Tracks chart for five total weeks, doing so well that it made its way back to the chart three weeks after its initial run at the top.
Though Frusciante was the lead guitarist on the track because of its connection to the Blood Sugar Sex Magik sessions (“Soul To Squeeze” was the B-side to A-side singles “Give It Away” and “Under The Bridge”), he was notably absent from the video. Interestingly, the video did feature another connection to “Coneheads,” with Farley making a cameo appearance as one of the circus managers.
Lyrically speaking, the song is about the demons in your head and working through the perils of introspection when you’ve done things in life you regret. Depending on your perspective (and the likely perspective of Anthony Kiedis at the time), those regrets and introspective uncertainties almost certainly had something to do with drug use. Again, this level of musical discourse probably doesn’t have much place in the context of cone-headed aliens, but it’s fine. It’s the ‘90s, and no one likely noticed, anyway.
I got a bad disease
Out from my brain is where I bleed
Insanity it seems
Has got me by my soul to squeeze
But the real greatness of this song comes from Flea’s tremendous bass line, which just hums and purrs throughout the song. It may be one of his best performances on a track, which is saying something. Frusciante brings a sad and mellow tone with his guitar lead-in, and carries it through the song, punctuating Flea’s bass performance with whining flourishes. Kiedis keeps his performance low-key, but still manages to belt out some entertaining word vomit that straddles the line between scat and rap:
Doo-doo dingle zing a dong bone
Ba-di ba-da ba-zumba crunga cong gone bad
I could not forget, but I will not endeavor
Simple pleasures are much better but I won't regret it never
This is not my personal favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers song, but it’s arguably one of their best, if not THE best, in their prodigious catalog of hits. “Soul To Squeeze” is the second of FIFTEEN #1 hits that I have to discuss in great detail as I continue through this project, and thankfully we’ve got a long way to go before I start to dissect rain-dance Maggies and dark necessities. At least for now I can wax nostalgic on the songs that made RHCP one of the top artists of the 1990s, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better one than “Soul To Squeeze.”
I highly recommend adding this to your regular rotation of ‘90s songs if you haven’t already. I do NOT recommend adding “Coneheads” to your regular rotation of ‘90s movies.
Rating: 9/10
Chart Check
Other notable MRT chart songs from this time period
Lots to digest from this week’s crop of chart hits, including what I believe is New Order’s last appearance in the top 10 of the Modern Rock Tracks chart. This week’s chart also features the debuts of Urge Overkill and The Cranberries, the top-10 debut for Smashing Pumpkins, and Scott Weiland’s band looking to do some wicked gardening.
“World (The Price Of Love)” by New Order (#5): Given the sizable New Order fandom who follows my Substack, I’d feel terrible if I didn’t highlight the band’s #5 track “World (The Price Of Love).” It’s a solid track, not quite on the level of their recent #1 hit “Regret,” but still a decent synth-heavy song.
“Sister Havana” by Urge Overkill (#6): I’ll admit I never heard of Urge Overkill until “Pulp Fiction” and its soundtrack catapulted them into the zeitgeist with their terrific cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon.” But that track actually didn’t become a top-10 hit on the Modern Rock Track charts, surprisingly; it peaked at #11. “Sister Havana,” on the other hand, managed a #6 peak behind “Soul To Squeeze,” and it’s a solid alt-rock track.
“Cherub Rock” by Smashing Pumpkins (#7): The Smashing Pumpkins notch the first of their 17 top-10 Modern Rock Tracks chart hits with “Cherub Rock,” the first single off their 4x platinum album Siamese Dream. It goes without saying this song is one of the finest in their catalog, but also became a staple for me in the late 2000s playing “Rock Band” on the Xbox 360. (My band, “Chicago-Style Hot Dogs, usually performed this song nearly perfectly at our peak.) We’ll be talking about a couple more tracks from this album in due time; as for “Cherub Rock,” it peaked at #7 behind RHCP.
“Dreams” by The Cranberries (#15): Speaking of Modern Rock Tracks chart debuts, Irish rockers The Cranberries made their first appearance with “Dreams,” the first single off their 5x platinum album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? Technically, this song peaked at #15 behind Tears For Fears, but your author had so many top-10 hits to cover that week that he simply overlooked their presence there. Apologies on behalf of The Cranberries, who would go on to score seven more top-20 Modern Rock Tracks chart hits.
“Wicked Garden” by Stone Temple Pilots (#21): Released as a promotional single for the album Core, “Wicked Garden” continued to raise the profile of grunge alt-rockers Stone Temple Pilots. This song is more omnipresent now on ‘90s alt radio, but back at the time of its release it managed a relatively low #21 peak on the charts behind Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I'd forgotten about this RHCP song! It's the side of them I like best. While "Under the Bridge" was a huge smash, I always preferred "Breaking the Girl." "Soul to Squeeze" is pretty good too. I have to admit that as devoted as I've been to SNL over the years I never did see The Coneheads! I guess I don't need to now!