Songfacts®:

• "Not The One" is a confessional ballad where Anthony Kiedis addresses a love interest. He's struggling to live up to her expectations, and fears if she ever saw the real Anthony Kiedis behind the mask, she'd think he's not the one for her. "I think I was going through a very lonely and introspective month," the Chili Peppers frontman told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. "This idea came about I think I know who you are, but maybe I don't. You think you know who I am, but maybe you don't and especially in intimate relationships, like we know we all present something and people always have an idea, but what would happen if we just showed each other our very worst from the very start?"
• The Red Hot Chili Peppers released "Not the One" as the third single from their 2022 album Unlimited Love. A tender, melancholic ballad, Flea's gentle piano and John Frusciante's birdsong-like guitar swells make this different to almost anything else in the band's catalog.
• The song originated with an idea from Flea, which he put together with a drum machine and bass in his garage. Kiedis recalled to Zane Lowe listening to Flea's demo driving home from band practice and picturing the entire song completely inverted.
  
  The next day he asked Flea, "I know this is not what you had in mind, but is it alright if I sing the verse over the chorus and the chorus over the bridge?" Flea agreed, and that's the version band recorded for Unlimited Love.