By the Way is a song by Red Hot Chili Peppers. It is the title track and first single from the band’s eighth studio album of the same name, released on June 24, 2002. The song was the band’s sixth number-one hit on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and spent seven weeks at number one on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Internationally, the song reached number two in the United Kingdom, becoming the band’s highest-peaking single there alongside “Dani California”, and peaked atop the Italian Singles Chart.
Regarding its release, guitarist John Frusciante noted:
“It wasn’t really our decision to put that song out first, but our managers thought it was an exciting song and their enthusiasm convinced us. I guess they thought that it combined the wild part of our sound with the melodic part of our sound.”
Vocalist Anthony Kiedis elaborated:
“I thought that single was an über-bombastic assault of non-commercialism. For it to be so well-received (in the United Kingdom) was shocking to me, but thrilling at the same time.”
The music video was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, a couple who have directed many other music videos for the band. The video was released on June 10, 2002.
The video starts off with Kiedis calling for a taxi. He gets in the taxi and the cabbie (played by Dave Sheridan) realizes he has him as his passenger. To please him, the driver puts a copy of the “By the Way” single into the taxi CD player, making Kiedis smile slightly.
Suddenly, the cabbie begins driving out of control as he lip-syncs the song while driving rambunctiously throughout the streets of Los Angeles. After he locks the car door, an uncomfortable and apprehensive Kiedis attempts to make a call on his cell phone, but the cabbie brakes so hard that Kiedis loses grip of it. The cabbie snatches the phone and throws it out the window, then drives the car in a cloud of dust and backs up under a bridge.
While there, the cabbie pulls out flare sticks and begins to torture Kiedis through awkward dancing while the latter finally pages bassist Flea and Frusciante (with a message reading, “Help! Been kidnapped.”), who are having lunch in a cafe.
At first, they think it’s a hoax, so they ignore the first message. When Kiedis pages them for the second time, they set out on Flea‘s Ford Bronco to find him with the crazy cabbie in the taxi. A wild chase and road rage ensues.
Kiedis soon sees Flea and Frusciante, breaks out of the taxi window, and jumps in Flea‘s truck with a sigh of relief as the three escape the cabbie. At the end of the video, drummer Chad Smith flags down the taxi, with the cabbie realizing he is also a member of the band, so he lets him in and drives off with him. However, Chad is unaware that this is the same taxi man that kidnapped Kiedis and also ignores the broken glass.
Kiedis said of the video:
It’s kidnapping… A cab driver kidnaps me and just goes haywire through the town; he’s a fan, but he’s kind of a obsessive, compulsive, psychologically misarranged fan, and he sees me and starts enjoying himself a little too much and my friends have to come and rescue me.
Tracklist:
- By the Way
- Time
- A Teenager in Love
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Anthony Kiedis: lead vocals
John Frusciante: guitar, backing vocals
Flea: bass
Chad Smith: drums, tambourine
