D minor · Camelot 7A · 89 BPM
Scar Tissue
by Red Hot Chili Peppers
- 89
- BPM
- D minor
- Key
- 7A
- Camelot
- 60
- Danceability
- 8
- Acousticness
John Frusciante played the slide guitar solos that run throughout "Scar Tissue", the Red Hot Chili Peppers single that introduced the band's seventh album, Californication, in 1999. His mellow intro riff became one of the track's most recognizable features, and Guitar World later placed the solo 63rd on its list of the 100 greatest guitar solos. The song marked a turn toward a more melodic rock sound, a departure from the psychedelic leanings of One Hot Minute and the dry funk of Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
Released on May 25, 1999, the single spent a then-record 16 consecutive weeks at the top of the US Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart, along with 10 weeks atop the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. It also charted abroad, hitting number one in Iceland, number three in New Zealand, and number four in Canada, while landing at number 15 in the United Kingdom. The song won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 2000.
Stéphane Sednaoui, who had also directed the video for "Give It Away", filmed the music video in California's Mojave Desert. It opens with Frusciante driving a 1967 Pontiac Catalina convertible down a desert highway, a metaphor for his return to the band, though he does not drive in real life. The four band members appear battered and bandaged, playing broken instruments in a rusty wreck, and the video closes at sunset as Frusciante tosses a stringless guitar from the car after a thirty second solo.
Scar Tissue runs at 89 BPM, the tempo of boom-bap hip-hop, reggae and slow R&B. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.7 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 674 ms. It is in D minor, Camelot 7A, which shares its notes with F major and mixes cleanly with G minor and A minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.