Why Oh Why Can't I Like The Foo Fighters More?

By Petr Navovy | Videos | September 6, 2024 |

One of the most frustrating, long-running tensions of my life is that I really wish I liked the Foo Fighters (RIP, Taylor) more than I do. I know, I know. Cataclysmic stuff. But it really is very annoying, because all the signs point to one inescapable conclusion: I should absolutely love the Foo Fighters. They’re one of the biggest rock bands in the world—one of the last few remaining mainstream rock bands that have a globe-spanning profile the likes of which we don’t really see anymore—and they are fronted by Dave Grohl, a person who isn’t just cut from a rock star cloth that also doesn’t really exist anymore but is by most accounts a lovely human being (or, at the very least, celebrity), and someone who actively carries the torch of rock and metal (as befits a good friend of the late, great, one and only Lemmy).

And yet. And yet, despite all that, I just can’t love the Foo Fighter’s music. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not bad. I don’t dislike it! I love a few of their tunes. But that’s where the problem lies for me. It’s a few tunes. Over the course of a career that’s spanned how many ~~years~~ decades? Three. Dave Grohl created the entity that would become the Foo Fighters as we know it now in 1994. Three bloody decades ago. Which is insane and incredible and one of the all-time great rock ‘n’ roll survivor stories, how this talented, hard-working motherfu**er managed to rise out of the tragedy that befell his earlier (already iconic) band, and how through sheer will and the love of music he forged one of the most successful rock bands of the modern era. It’s completely insane. And for that Dave Grohl has nothing but my utmost respect forever.

I just wish that respect and that affection could be matched by an enthusiasm for his new (‘new’! )band’s music. Three decades, eleven studio albums, and—I finally did a tally of this the other day—I like a grand total of five songs. ‘Times Like These’, ‘All My Life’, ‘Run’, ‘Learn to Fly’, and ‘Something from Nothing’.

But no, of course, that’s a lie.

It’s six songs I like.

Obviously.

Because that list didn’t include ‘Everlong’, the second single from the Foo Fighter’s second studio album, 1997’s (help, we’re old) ‘The Colour and the Shape’. It’s impossible not to like—love—‘Everlong,’ a song born out of heartbreak, which the Foos always close their sets with, because they know the power of the material. ‘Everlong’, the ultimate crossover Gen X/Millennial anthem of yearning, the opening drop-D drone of which has the instant effect of stopping any one of us in our tracks and whisking our minds away to another plane of emotion and nostalgia. ‘If everything could ever be this real forever, if anything could ever be this good again,’ indeed. Grohl, you sonofab*tch.

Anyway, I bring all this up not because I want to give backhanded compliments, but because I just stumbled upon a version of ‘Everlong’ that absolutely needs to be shared. I’m not usually a huge fan of the clickety-clack school of acoustic guitar that seems to have gotten big alongside the rise of YouTube and the videos of bedroom guitarists mastering it, but guitarist Mike Dawes’ clickety-clack take on the Foo Fighters’ eternal anthem is tasteful and perfectly judged. Check it out and yearn along with me: