"Tearjerker" was a tribute to Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain. Kiedis felt Cobain's death "was an emotional blow, and we all felt it. I don't know why everyone on earth felt so close to that guy; he was beloved and endearing and inoffensive in some weird way. For all of his screaming and all of his darkness, he was just lovable." "My Friends" addressed more of Kiedis' own somber thoughts rather than those of "his friends": "My friends are so distressed/And standing on the brink of emptiness/No words I know of to express/This emptiness."