After the successful debut of the young band The Flow (the first name of The Red Hot Chili Peppers) at the Grandia Room, the organizers of the show decided to invite the group for a second concert in case there should be more than one song. The band had only two weeks to write it, and on December 30, 1982, the future The Red Hot Chili Peppers presented their second track, Get Up & Jump, to the public. When writing the lyrics, Anthony Kiedis was inspired by the behavior of his bandmates: all of them were constantly jumping both on and off stage - into pools from rooftops, over fences. Since the founding of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the collective photo jump has become a tradition. That's what the song was about. The phrase about "pumpkin in your pants" was dedicated to Hillel Slovak, who often wore pants that emphasized his manhood. The band recorded a demo version of the song in May 1983 on the first take and was very pleased with the work. According to some sources, the second version of the track was recorded in January 1984 on a demo tape with Sherman and Martinez, but, again, the fans do not have an exact list of songs in their hands, so there is no 100% guarantee. When new guitarist Jack Sherman joined The Red Hot Chili Peppers in December 1983, he first tried to play Slovak's part - quirky, a little awkward, but eventually decided to make the song's intro more funky. Hillel's part remained in the verses - Jack performed it at the first RHCP television performance on the Alan Thicke show in March 1984. Therefore, for the album, he completely reworked the guitar part, eventually changing the verses as well. Jack told me in 2018: "These songs have not yet been fully recorded, and it was not very interesting for me to simply copy someone else's parts, so I wanted to invent my own". Producer Andy Gill tried (unsuccessfully) to turn the song into a radio hit, changing the standard structure of the track, adding two choruses, cutting some of the verses, adding a choir and brass. Of course, the band did not agree with this decision, and the song had never been performed live in such a sound, the 1983 demo always remained the template. Keith Barry (aka Tree) wrote the brass part for the song. In 1984-1988 he occasionally appeared at RHCP performances as a special guest playing saxophone on "Mommy Where's Daddy", and in late 1989 - early 1990 Barry toured the US, Japan and Europe with RHCP. A promotional single was released in August 1984 with Rob Stevens' remix of "Get Up & Jump" based on the album version. The record never went on sale being "promo only", and the band itself, most likely, forgot about the existence of the dance version years ago, especially since the remix has never been officially re-released in digital format.
The song was played at almost every concert until the death of Hillel Slovak in June 1988, after which the track appeared less and less on the set lists. With the arrival of John Frusciante and Darren Henley aka D.H. Peligro Get Up & Jump has been played live once in 2-3 concerts. It is curious that Frusciante performed the part of Jack Sherman at concerts (not Hillel's version). With the arrival of Chad Smith in December 1988, the song began to sound even less frequently, and from the end of 1989 it completely left the set lists, giving way to newer tracks. An attempt to get Get Up & Jump back on the program was made at the second concert of the "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" tour on October 17, 1991 - this time John learned the part of Hillel Slovak, however, in the end it turned out to be something remotely similar. After that, the song finally left the set lists.
In the spring of 2003, at one of the concerts, the band jokingly played a fragment of "Get Up & Jump", in the version of Jack Sherman. RHCP didn't perform the track in any form after that, but the song was rehearsed for The Getaway tour, and according to Josh Klinghoffer, it the same version as on the 1983 demo. But, unfortunately, Anthony Kiedis opposed the idea of performing the old song in concert, so the return of "Get Up & Jump" to the concert program never took place.
The band itself held the song in high regard during its early years, and performed it on its first two television appearances, in March 1984 on the Alan Thicke show and in August 1984 on the MTV show Cutting Edge.