Red Hot Chili Peppers: Slow Cheetah Meaning

Slow Cheetah Lyrics

Waking up dead inside of my head
Will never never do there is no med
No medicine to take

I've had a chance to be insane
Asylum from the falling rain
I've had a chance to break

It's so bad it's got to be good
Mysterious girl...

1. ababadla

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jan 23rd 2010 !⃝

   The song is about slow cats that can't catch their food.
2. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Dec 7th 2009 !⃝

   In this song, the slow cheetah is a metaphor for a person who has unrealized potential and is lyrically synonomous with the allegorical girl who is dressed up like a wedding cake and wanting for superficial satisfaction. The song is actually addressed to slow cheetahs, and is more or less an invitation to the listener to shed the material wants that are weighing their spirit down -- bury them -- and join others in the forest. Forests and trees are commonly used to represent pure and positive life.
   
   I don't think this song has anything to do with drug use. It is totally about spiritual reclamation. The references to waking up dead, burial grounds, insane asylums and such are, in my view, related to the "psychosis" that one experiences when their consciousness expands and they are no longer spiritually/metaphysically bound by the material world. The burial ground song is merry because it represents rebirth rather than death.
   
   In short, this song is an invitation to people to bury their material obsessions and join others in the forest of one love. Every cheetah has the potential to realize their speed.
3. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Mar 8th 2009 !⃝

   Anthony hates the slow cheetah becuase the oxymoron represents an unknown symbol of his childhood. Unfortunately he is unable to grasp his life in the same way the cheetah is unable to grasp his own speed. In this case, it is a metaphor for the band currently coping with success sans drugs.
4. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Mar 8th 2009 !⃝

   Anthony hates the slow cheetah because the oxymoron represents an unknown symbol of his childhood. Unfortunately he is unable to grasp his life in the same way the cheetah is unable to grasp his own speed. In this case, it is a metaphor for the band currently coping with success sans drugs.
5. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Nov 27th 2008 !⃝

   Anthony Kiedis is a keen hunter and natural conservation is a cause close to his heart.
   
   He wants to lure the slow cheetah closer to the edge of the forest. The cheetah is slow and useless, and he believes it should be euthanased. Anthony sees himself in a hide with a rifle at the edge of the forest. The closer the cheetah gets, the better his chance of a clean kill.
   
   Pleased with a good day's work, he whistles to himself (a "merry old sound") while he drags the carcass to the to burial ground before the jackals get a whiff of their carrion feast.
6. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Apr 11th 2008 !⃝

   The part that goes "Walking on down To the burial ground
   It's a very old dance With a merry old sound
   Looks like it's on today" I believe is a reference to a relapse. Walking on down To the burial ground refering to going to where he used to cop his drugs,It's a very old dance With a merry old sound refers to the length of his addiction and the euphoria of being high,Looks like it's on today, is about giving in to the urge, most addicts go through it!
7. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Mar 13th 2008 !⃝

   This song was written about Anthony's ex Yohanna Logan. She is the 'cheetah' so to speak.
8. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Sep 30th 2007 !⃝

   If you watch the video for the song posted on youtube it's about an overweight young girl's struggle to find self worth and happiness and the illusion that the thin attractive model has an ideal life. I think slow cheetah has two meanings in this song just as a slow cheetah might be judged inadequate a superficial person could judge a overweight girl the same way.
   I can't deny though that a slow cheetah or speed ball is the literal meaning of the song since it is "euphoric" I believe this is the escape the girls use to find temporary escape from there obsessive feeling about there body image.
9. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Aug 8th 2007 !⃝

   It's about aging...
10. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Dec 21st 2006 !⃝

    I think the song is about slowing down. I saw in an interview to the rhcp, they said that, it was about stoping the franctic life people led, an slowing down. No matter if it´s drug abuse, love, or anything else. Sometimes you need to stop, and star slowly, calmly, to take time to finally think and stop the rush decisions. At least, that is what they said in it, and it fits with my perspective of the song.
11. mz.Kiedis

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Nov 13th 2006 !⃝

    Yea, I thought that too. Nice thinking about the slow herion cheatah coke thing! You like stadium arcadium the album then?
12. anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Sep 26th 2006 !⃝

    I thought this was another song about drug use, specifically speed balling which is usually heroine and cocain or heroine and some other accelerant. I figured the title was refering to slow(heroin) cheetah (cocain).

Latest Articles

• 
  Anime to watch for the soundtracks… and other reasons you’re undateable
• 
  Dolly, we need you
• 
  The Stranger Things Effect: How new media is drawing Gen Z and Alpha's attention to aging media
• 
  The most underrated soundtrack of the early 2000s
• 
  Buy the Soundtrack, Skip the Movie: Brainscan (1994)
• 
  Let’s Go to the Hop - Ignore That Door’s Four Bunnies and a Beatbox