This guitar part is the "Stairway to Heaven" of my own generation. Every proper guitar kid had to produce it upon request. The structure is even Stairway-esque, the drums holding a hi-hat and rim shot for most of the song before exploding Bonhamly for a dramatic ending.
It's a song that the melodically ham-fisted Chili Peppers didn't deserve to write, because this one is an absolute sincere winner. Anthony "Give it up like the kaiser" Kiedis, for one day, mustered the brilliance to come up with these enduring verse, chorus, and ending vocal ideas.
Good for them.
They spent a second career with their fingers in the air, hoping for another lightning strike.
I saw the video for this song in the early '90s, in that fortuitous 1992, and I knew for the first time in my young life that the world was actually changing.
Or was it? "Under the Bridge" got to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart but could never unseat #1, "Jump" by Kris Kross... Most people really just do not care.