“Pretty Little Ditty” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

"Pretty Little Ditty" drifts out of Mother's Milk, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' 1989 album, as an instrumental John Frusciante and Flea wrote between them, and one of the clearest signs of how far the band was willing to wander on that record. Where much of the album stacks guitar on guitar, this one leaves Frusciante's nimble picking and strumming unlayered, what writer Jeff Apter heard as dreamy and sweetly stoned, while Flea cuts through with bursts of trumpet. Michael Beinhorn produced it, Garth Richardson engineered and Dave Jerden mixed.

Ten years later it found a second life as sample fodder: rap-rock outfit Crazy Town built their 1999 single "Butterfly" on part of its second section, and that record sold 6 million copies worldwide. In August 2020, Headie One, AJ Tracey and Stormzy lifted it again for "Ain't It Different".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.