Red Hot Chili Peppers - Porcelain Meaning

Porcelain Lyrics

Porcelain
Are you wasting away in your skin
Are you missing the love of your kin
Drifting and floating and fading away

Porcelain
Do you smell like a girl when you smile
Can you bear not to share with your child
Drifting and floating and...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Dec 21st 2010 !⃝

   Actually kiedis states it is about a woman he met a YMCA who was a single mother and struggling with alcohol addiction.

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Dec 11th 2010 !⃝

   I am surprised no one commented on this as it is a really good but underrated song. It is about the sad but inevitable truth of seeing your parents grow apart from you, grow old, and die in a profoundly lonely way. "Are you fading away in your skin" and "can you bare not to share with your child" are clear examples of it
3. anonymous

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   Sep 4th 2018 !⃝

   I believe it’s about a mom who does either drugs or alcohol and is suffering from depression and her child is seeing that and everyone can see how she’s not getting any better and she eventually passes away
4. anonymous

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   Mar 24th 2013 !⃝

   Anthony Keidis himself said it was about a woman he met in 1998 at the YMCA. She had a child she couldn't take care of, and either an alcohol related problem or a drug use issue. It has nothing to do with a doll, or your parents getting older.
5. JohnJohn

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   Aug 22nd 2011 !⃝

   No No....
   all of you have it wrong!
   It's simply about a Porcelain doll that is floating and wasting away.
   opening lyrics:
   says:
   1-Porcelain
   2-Are you wasting away in your skin
   3-Are you missing the love of your kin
   4-Drifting and floating and fading away
   means:
   1-the doll
   2-meaning just that the salt water is eating away at the porcelain
   3-meaning that if the doll misses the child that once played with it
   4-floating at sea alone...
   
   It's about loving the little moments in life. before they are gone. you see, the porcelain is a doll, and it is floating and "wasting away". why? well, he could actually be singing about a flood that has taken away memories that won't be...."little lune all day" is referring to a moon...which the doll is just floating out at sea alone.....If you incorporate massive floods/destruction to this song(and all the others on this album) it will make more sense....
6. anonymous

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   Jul 16th 2011 !⃝

   It's about a woman who was pregnant and addicted to heroin. "Nodding and melting and fading away..."
7. anonymous

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   Feb 22nd 2011 !⃝

   Yes it was about a woman he met who was struggling with alcohol addiction.