Liner Notes · No. 002
"Soul to Squeeze" by Red Hot Chili Peppers: the B-side
Quick hall pass: the song the Chili Peppers cut from their biggest album landed in Coneheads, sat in a drawer for five years, and came back as a lullaby. Here's the B-side.
📰 FAST FACTS
- November 2, 2019: they played it in a school parking lot, at the Silverlake Conservatory of Music benefit hosted by Marc Maron. Eddie Vedder sat in that night for “Purple Rain” and “All Along the Watchtower.” Your school fundraiser had a bake sale. (Jambands)
- It held #1 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart from August 14 to September 4, 1993, slipped off, then climbed back for the week ending September 25. The reject refused to stay rejected. (Chart Chat)
- The band’s Walk of Fame star is number 2,717, on Hollywood Boulevard outside Amoeba Records. Of all the sidewalks in Hollywood, they got the one in front of a record store. (Loudwire)
- The Rockabye Baby lullaby album got a colored-vinyl edition in January 2025. Because your baby deserves the audiophile pressing. (Sold Out Vinyl)
On this record
TRACK 1
The Coneheads soundtrack was a fever dream
The Coneheads soundtrack threw Slash, Soft Cell, Paul Simon and Barenaked Ladies-doing-Public-Enemy into one blender. Chris Farley worked both the movie and the video.
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The song's big-screen life is Coneheads (1993), the movie version of Dan Aykroyd's SNL sketch about aliens from the planet Remulak who tell everyone they're from France. The soundtrack reads like someone shuffled every CD in a 1993 dorm room: Slash and Michael Monroe doing "Magic Carpet Ride," Soft Cell's "Tainted Love," Paul Simon's "Kodachrome," R.E.M., Digable Planets, and Barenaked Ladies covering Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." Yes, that happened.
The crossover goes both ways. Chris Farley turns up in the Chili Peppers' video as the cigar-chomping carnival boss. In the movie he plays Ronnie, the mechanic who falls for Connie Conehead. Range.
One more singer on that track list will look very familiar to HallPass readers. Quiz time.
Which of these singers is also on the Coneheads soundtrack?
No Googling. We'll know.
That's Side A. Flip the tape.
Side B is where it gets weird:
- Why the band waited five years to play it live, and the night in Seville it came back.
- The covers, including a lullaby version. Sleep tight.
- Flea's jazz album, and what the band is doing now.
Free, every Tuesday. One song, the story you never heard, and a 10-minute hall pass from the doomscroll. Already subscribed? Enter your email to unlock.
▶ SIDE B
TRACK 2
Five years in a drawer
Not played live until 1998, after Frusciante came back. In 2022 the reject closed out a stadium set in Seville.
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The band didn't play "Soul to Squeeze" live until June 5, 1998, at an acoustic radio set at KBLT in Los Angeles, their first appearance after John Frusciante came back. A week later, at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., they played it at their first proper show with him. A fan review says dozens of hands went up during the ballad. Five years of waiting will do that.
On June 4, 2022, opening their world stadium tour in Seville, Spain, they played it with Frusciante for the first time since 2007. Second-to-last song of the main set, right before "Give It Away." The reject, closing out a stadium. Rick Rubin would like a word.
TRACK 3
The covers (there is a lullaby)
Barely anyone covers it. The ones who did: a box-set rare disc, a Paris club show, a xylophone lullaby and chill Red Rocks reggae.
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Almost nobody covers "Soul to Squeeze." Search for it and the internet hands you covers of the band Squeeze instead, which is its own kind of insult. Here's what does exist:
- 1994 · Red Hot Chili Peppers. The three-disc Live Rare Remix Box put it on the "Rare" disc with the other Blood Sugar leftovers. The reject pile, now sold as a box set.
- 2006 · Live at La Cigale, Paris. A small-club show from the Stadium Arcadium era that became one of the most-shared live versions online.
- 2012 · Rockabye Baby! The lullaby series redid it on xylophone and bells for Lullaby Renditions of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Track 12. Your baby is an RHCP fan now. You're welcome.
- 2021 · Slightly Stoopid. The California reggae-rock band played it live at Red Rocks. Exactly as chill as you'd expect.
▶ WATCH THE CONTENDERS
Battle of the versions: which "Soul to Squeeze" wins?
Cast your vote. Results in the next issue. Choose carefully: we're judging you.
TRACK 4
Where the Chili Peppers are now
Same four guys, two albums in 2022, a Flea jazz record, a Netflix film about founding guitarist Hillel Slovak, and new music in the works.
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Same four guys: Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith and John Frusciante, who rejoined in late 2019. Their last two albums, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen, both came out in 2022, the same year they got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, unveiled by George Clinton.
On March 27, 2026, Flea released Honora, his first full-length solo album: a jazz record built around his trumpet, with Nick Cave singing "Wichita Lineman." The man who once performed wearing only a sock now has a jazz album on Nonesuch. People contain multitudes.
A week earlier, Netflix premiered The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel, about founding guitarist Hillel Slovak, who died in 1988. Kiedis and Flea are interviewed, and Slovak's own journals tell the story.
In October 2025, Kiedis said the band is working on new music with Frusciante. No album or date yet.
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