Songfacts®:

• "Eddie" is the late rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen, whose October 2020 passing deeply affected the band. The day after his death, Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea came into rehearsal with an emotional bass line. Guitarist John Frusciante, drummer Chad Smith, and frontman Anthony Kiedis started playing along, and a heartfelt song in his honor unfolded. "It felt good to be sad and care so much about a person who had given so much to our lives," said Kiedis.
• Born in Amsterdam to a Dutch jazz pianist father and Indonesian mother, Eddie Van Halen moved with his parents and older brother to Pasadena, California, in 1962.
  
  Sailing the Sunset Strip, I'm a bit of a king
  Granny would take a trip, I've been bending the strings
  Got hammers in both my hands, such a delicate touch
  They say I'm from Amsterdam, does that make me Dutch?
  
  The song doesn't mention Eddie Van Halen by name but Kiedis delivers lines that clearly reference the late Van Halen axeman. "It talks about his early days on the Sunset Strip and the rock 'n' roll tapestry that Van Halen painted on our minds," he said. "In the end, our song asks that you not remember Eddie for dying but for living his wildest dream."
• Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded "Eddie" at Shangri-La studios in Malibu, California for Return Of The Dream Canteen. Rick Rubin produced the album; the legendary producer also helmed many of RHCP's past albums, including 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, 1999's Californication, and 2022's Unlimited Love.
• Red Hot Chili Peppers gave "Eddie" its live debut at Austin City Limits on October 9, 2022.
• Anthony Kiedis told the story of the song in a video.
  
  "It was a sad day because Eddie Van Halen died, and we loved him and his band and everything that he did for the world with his band, and we were freaking stricken even though we knew he was Ill the uh the finality of Eddie leaving this world had a real emotional, spiritual, psychological, energetic impact on us. We all came to rehearsal the day after Eddie died, and Flea just started playing this bassline which he had written upon hearing the news of Eddie's death, and we all joined in kind of effortlessly, which happens sometimes when we're writing music."
• When Kiedis was recording the song's vocal with Rick Rubin on the island of Kawai sometime later, the producer was really befuddled by the lyric because it's very nonliteral and it doesn't say, "Hey Eddie, we miss you, you've passed away, thank you."
  
  "It says none of these things," said Kiedis. "It kind of makes a few odd esoteric references to Flying V guitars and you know imagining what it would have been like to be Eddie making some mistakes in life hanging out with his friends in life, maybe some debauchery in life you know maybe some not taking care of yourself some days and that whole song is kind of through the vision of what it would possibly be like to be Eddie.
  
  I don't like always writing in the extreme literal sense and Rick was like 'What is the song about I don't understand it.' I was like, 'It's okay, it's not really meant to be clearly understood it's just meant to be felt.'"