Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has come for me to get writing up for the 968th time (That means we’ll soon be coming up to my 1000th post on the site) for ‘Scuzz Sundays’ with yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! It is always interesting to write about music from a famous band who have an absolutely gigantic fanbase like Foo Fighters, but it’s also very saddening that it’s happened due to some very unfortunate circumstances this time around. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last two weeks, their beloved drummer Taylor Hawkins has died at the age of 50, and the band have also cancelled their performance at the Grammy Awards and the rest of their tour dates to allow for a time of somber reflection instead. How they move forward as a band is unclear, but what is clear, is the influence and the gifts that Hawkins bought to the world. Hawkins was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1972 and he attended school with Yes vocalist Jon Davison, who became a close friend of Hawkins, and the two friends graduated from Lagune Beach High School together in 1990. Hawkins went on to play in experimental bands like Sylvia and Sass Jordan on the Orange County rock scene, before he was scouted by Canadian 90’s star Alanis Morissette, and he appeared in a handful of her music videos. Hawkins joined Foo Fighters in 1996, when Dave Grohl fell out with previous drummer William Goldsmith while they were in Seattle to record their second album with Gil Norton as their producer, and Grohl was suprised to learn that he wanted to voluntarily join Foo Fighters because he wanted to be a drummer in a rock band rather than a touring drummer for a solo artist. Hawkins went on to record eight albums with Foo Fighters, as well as pursue many side projects including The Birds Of Satan, Chevy Metal and The Coattail Riders, and he has performed a number of key vocal and songwriting duties as part of Foo Fighters too. ‘Everlong’ is a very important part of the band’s legacy now, and I’ve chosen to cover the track because it was the last song that he had played live with the rest of Foo Fighters in a live performance at the Lollapalooza Festival in Argentina on March 20th, 2022. You can see the live video above or you can remind yourself of the original music video below.
“Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family and we ask that their privacy be treated with the upmost respect in this unimaginably difficult tine”, Foo Fighters share about Hawkins’ death. It is very fitting and poignant how their performance of ‘Everlong’ at Lollapalooza ended, as Hawkins tossed his drum sticks out to the crowd and took a bow with the rest of his band before a hearty embrace with Grohl, and so it is very tragic for us to know what would unfold just five days later now. Commenting on his relationship with Hawkins in an interview with Rolling Stone published last year, Grohl said, “I think Taylor really under-estimates his importance in this band. Maybe because he’s not the original drummer, but, my god, what would we be without Taylor Hawkins? Could you imagine? It would be a completely different thing”, in celebration of his service to the group. A single originally recorded for their second album – ‘The Colour And The Shape’ – in 1997, ‘Everlong’ peaked within the top three of the US Billboard Alternative Songs chart and it was written about Grohl’s romance with Louise Post from the band Veruca Salt. Rather than developing ‘Everlong’ like a Grunge off-shoot as expected by the press, Grohl wanted it to feel more sentimental and incorporate Pop sensibilities into the sound, and he did so with gripping and upbeat lyrics like “Breathe out, so I can breathe you in, Hold you in” and “Come down, and waste away with me, Down with me, slow how you wanted it to be” that encourage intimacy with a special person that hasn’t been experienced for a long while by our narrator, while lyrics in the chorus like “If everything could ever feel this real forever/If anything could ever be this good again” touch upon the realization that you have fallen in love after doubting the fact that you could ever again for a few years prior. The themes are simple, but the music thoroughly conveys the emotional qualities behind the track as the vocals dive between subdued and atmospheric, while the simple chord structure is catchy and the softer parts are calming, while the guitar riff is distinctive enough for the track to feel fresh in it’s heyday and the tones are honest and cheerful without coming across as overly twee or gushy. Overall, it is a natural radio hit and a stadium crowd-pleaser that reminds us all to grasp wonder despite any practical or intellectual concerns and relishing the feeling of joy or harmony without not sentimentally rejecting it. It brings the same sense of happiness that Hawkins clearly brought to this band over the decades that he played with them.
Given how Foo Fighters are such a beloved band who have left a large blueprint on our culture, it is only natural that we have talked about them in the older posts below.
‘Monkey Wrench’ (1997) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/10/18/scuzz-sundays-foo-fighters-monkey-wrench/
‘Waiting On A War’ (2021) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/02/05/new-album-release-friday-foo-fighters-waiting-on-a-war/
That’s all for now, and my thoughts and prayers go out to all of Hawkins’ loved ones who have been deeply affected over the past two weeks. Thank you for checking out what I had to share on the site today, and I’ll be back tomorrow to kick off the new week’s worth of regular blog posts with a summer-friendly new single by a Grammy and MOBO awards-nominated London-based Afrobeat duo who pitch their sound as “Jazztronica”, and the title track of their new album was built from a Fela Kuti sample.
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