"Snow (Hey Oh)" | ||||||||
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Single by Red Hot Chili Peppers | ||||||||
from the album Stadium Arcadium | ||||||||
B-side | "Funny Face" "I'll Be Your Domino" |
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Released | November 20, 2006 | |||||||
Format | CD single, vinyl, digital download | |||||||
Recorded | March - December 2005 at The Mansion in Los Angeles, California | |||||||
Length | 5:34 (album version) 4:37 (radio edit) |
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Label | Warner Bros. | |||||||
Writer(s) | Flea, Frusciante, Kiedis, Smith | |||||||
Producer(s) | Rick Rubin | |||||||
Red Hot Chili Peppers singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Snow (Hey Oh)" (stylized "Snow ((Hey Oh))") is a song by American band Red Hot Chili Peppers from their 2006 double album, Stadium Arcadium. The song was released as the follow-up single to "Tell Me Baby" on November 20, 2006 and became the band's third straight number one hit on the Billboard Modern Rock chart, a spot it held for five straight weeks. The single was their 11th to top that chart, giving the band the all-time record for any artist on that chart, a record they still hold to date and extended in 2016 to 13.
Vocalist Anthony Kiedis states that the track is "about surviving, starting fresh. I've made a mess of everything, but I have a blank slate—a canvas of snow—and I get to start over."
On June 28, 2012, at the band's concert at Goffertpark in Nijmegen, Netherlands during the I'm with You Tour, the band performed the song for the first time since the end of the Stadium Arcadium Tour nearly five years earlier.
"Snow (Hey Oh)" is a characteristically soft, melodic song, much like those from the band's prior album By the Way. The song is driven by a rapid guitar riff by John Frusciante, and makes use of double stops on the bass by Flea. The song is written in the key of B major.
Frusciante.net revealed that this was going to be the third of seven songs released as a single from Stadium Arcadium. Before even being released as a single, it climbed to #53 in the UK iTunes top 100 on May 13. Like its predecessor "Tell Me Baby", it peaked at #16 in the UK Singles Chart.
On January 17, 2007, "Snow (Hey Oh)" became the band's record-breaking 11th number-one Modern Rock single in the United States and is the third consecutive chart-topping Modern Rock single from Stadium Arcadium.