This song was one of many collaborative efforts from the entire band. In an interview, guitarist John Frusciante mentioned that he had recorded a series of different chord progressions, he would mumble a bunch of nonsensical words into the mic during the recording. Lyricist Anthony Kiedis picked up on the words “wet sand” from John’s mumbling and was so moved that he modeled the lyrics off of those two words. The band then meshed together the various chord progressions John had written to build the rest of the song.
Flea described that the song is about loving the dark side of a person in conjunction to the good, and has listed it in his top five favorite RHCP songs.
