![]() ![]() If the lyrics are largely turned inward, lost in contemplation or adrift on reminiscence, the music hardly ever follows suit. The Teacher, meanwhile, is a lengthy, episodic song named after his mum’s profession, which fixates on the way a parent’s passing can make you consider your own proximity to mortality – “One step closer to the other side / I can feel what others do / I can’t stop this if I wanted to” – before ending with an anguished, repeated yell of “goodbye” that’s eventually consumed by headphone-scourging noise. The cover features a dedication to both Hawkins and Grohl’s late mother, Virginia, whose deaths the lyrics occasionally seem to conflate: “Everything we love must grow old,” sings Grohl on Beyond Me, before the thought of his bandmate and best friend brings him up short, and he adds, “or so I’m told”. It makes no bones about being a musical act of mourning, opening with Grohl reeling from hearing of his best friend’s passing – “It came in a flash / It came out of nowhere / It happened so fast” – and ending with him singing: “Rest – you will be safe now.” Every song in between is about death, alternately poleaxed by grief, temporarily overwhelmed by memories or resolving to carry on: Nothing at All, which opens with the words “I’ve been meaning to tell you”, sounds like Grohl’s roaring justification for Foo Fighters’ continuing existence. Meanwhile, on Foo Fighters’ first album since Hawkins’ death – with Grohl filling in on drums – Joshua Freese has been announced as Hawkins’ live replacement. And the death in 2022 of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins was marked with very public grieving: tribute concerts in LA and London – billed by Grohl as “gigantic fucking nights for a gigantic fucking person” – their bills featuring everyone from Rush to Liam Gallagher to Miley Cyrus, their conclusion emotionally charged performances by Foo Fighters themselves, Grohl fighting back tears as he sang. ![]() Dave Grohl’s charm and affability mean his name seldom appears in print unaccompanied by the phrase Nicest Guy in Rock his image long uncoupled itself from the darkness and angst that consumed Nirvana. Twenty-eight years later, Foo Fighters are enshrined as a dependable rock institution. ![]()
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