This is meant to be an imitation of a police siren.

Though members of the middle and working classes dedicate their lives to their work, their efforts go towards making the rich–whose hands are soft from not having to labor– richer.

The singer says that those who are doing the menial, day to day work are the ones who create the “billions” of dollars for companies and the rich who employ them. These workers, however, are ultimately the ones who benefit least from this system. The singer also compares the 9+ zeroes necessary to numerically demarcate a single billion, to the larger number of poor and middle class workers that create wealth for a select few billionaires and large corporations.

Likely a reference to the home of Kiedis' father, who was a well known drug dealer along the Sunset Strip. But he could also be talking about the famous bridge from “Under the Bridge” where he used to shoot up, or just the mental state that every junkie experiences when they’re high.

The Scarecrow is a Jungian archetype said to represent one’s persona, or the image a person projects to the world. The scarecrow, like the persona, is an illusion or a decoy, however, and not reality.

Just as we may never question the personas presented to us by others, no one is questions whether the stories and promises the “scarecrow” “spins” are real.

BONUS: photo of Jung chillin

There is no direct English translation for the Russian word “toska,” which loosely means “sadness” or “melancholia.” Author Vladimir Nobokov described “toska” as ranging from “great spiritual anguish” to “the dull ache of the soul” to “vague restlessness” sometimes connected to nostalgia or love-sickness. Singer Jake Snider captures both of these emotions, expressing the longing for love while acknowledging the painful “trickery” of memory and nostalgia. “Toska” drifts between the realities of love and the lies we tell, to ourselves and each other, that create such profound longing.