Following the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, the group would disband and drummer
Dave Grohl would go on to form Foo Fighters. Foo FIghters self titled debut record in 1995
won much praise as did Its follow-up, 1997’s The Colour And The Shape,
While Grohl played virtually all the instruments on the group’s first record minus a guitar solo,
their sophomore album was the first release from Foo Fighters to feature an actual band.
In fact Grohl hadn’t formed a band until he had to support the group’s first record on the road.
The recording of The Colour and the shape was a difficult time for the band and led
to the departure of drummer William Goldsmith - something I've covered in a separate video.
Despite the tumultuous recording sessions the album produced some of Foo Fighters biggest hits
including My Hero, Monkey Wrench and today’s topic Everlong. Everlong features a bridge
with a quiet whispering section towards the end of the track, but what is frontman Dave
Grohl singing and what is the story behind it? Let’s explore that in today’s video.
During the recording of the Colour and the Shape, Dave Grohl’s was going through a lot
of personal problems. The band was working at bear creek studios in november of 1996
but creatively the group was at their wit’s end. It was during this time he would receive
an envelope while in the studio which contained divorce papers from his soon to be ex-wife of
several years Jennifer Youngblood. The band soon ended their recording sessions and took
a break over Christmas. The divorce proceedings resulted in Grohl being temporarily homeless,
the courts freezing his bank accounts and giving him a small stipend. He would end up staying at a
friends house sleeping on the floor with almost a dozen other people. telling Howard Stern
“I was living in my friend Pete Stahl’s back room, and he had this dog named Dinky
that pissed on me in my f---ing sleep every night. I was in a sleeping bag in the back room,”
Both Stahl brothers also played with Grohl in the Washington, D.C. band Scream
the group he was in before he joined Nirvana Despite the turmoil in his life Grohl found
hope in a new relationship he had struck up with Louise Post of the band Veruca Salt.
Side note guys I’ve done a whole video on Veruca Salt the link is down below..
It’s been said that Post served as the inspiration behind the song ‘Everlong.’
Grohl would talk to Kerrang magazine in 2006 discussing the inspiration behind the track saying
“That song's about a girl that I'd fallen in love with and it was basically about being connected
to someone so much, that not only do you love them physically and spiritually, but when you
sing along with them you harmonise perfectly." Foo Fighters sophomore release saw them work
with Pixies producer Gil Norton who urged Grohl to write more heart felt lyrics, something that was
noticably absent from the group’s first album, Everlong came to Grohl while he was in between
takes for the song Monkey Wrench when he played a riff that sounded like Sonic
Youth’s track schichzophrenia. Grohl initially shrugged off the riff but still recorded a demo
and he would share it with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and his bandmates.
The song would end up being recorded for the colour and the shape and it was towards the
end of the track that the bridge comes in and you can hear Dave Grohl whispering. For a long time,
a lot of people had no clue what was being said in this part of the song.,
According to Foo Fighters official newsgroup they used to have a frequently asked questions section
which stated there’s three separate tracks layrered on top of one another for the final mix.
One is a love letter, the second is a technical manual and the third is a story about a studio
technician’s father. It wouldn’t be until 2008 when the video game Rock Band 2 was released.
If you've played Rock Band 2 then you'd know the vocalist is required to sing
the spoken word part of the song and featured Everlong as an on disc track that people could
finally see what one of the vocal tracks was saying. Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero
utilize the master recordings and require each instrumental and vocal track to be separated.
If you’ve ever wondered why vocal tracks or guitar tracks of drum tracks of your favourite
songs show up on youtube it’s most likely because someone extracted the from these video games. If
you’ve played ROck Band 2 then you’d know at least one of the spoken word parts is actually charted
and the lyrics are as follows charted. "So Dad would take the Sundays off,
And that's the only time he could ever get any rest,
And so, because we were loud on Sundays, He'd make us hold his construction boots
over our head, till he'd sleep And they were really heavy boots
And I'd used to say dad come on please And like start crying, cause they re too heavy
On the youtube channel produce like a pro they would interview one of the engineers
who worked on the album named Bradley Cook who said the following about the bridge of
the song“"Assistant [engineer] Ryan Bosch told us a story," "His dad would come home
from his night job and he had to sleep in the daytime. When he and his brother were too loud,
his dad would give them military punishment [raises arms] and [make them] hold [his] boots at
the foot of his bed, hold them up while he slept. That's Dave retelling the story" he would say
When asked about the technical manual and love letterCook recalled
"I don't know if it was a tech book or just some book," So we did three tracks — it was
Ryan's story and a couple of tracks of him reading from some random book. But … it
appears it's just the story at first, and then the other stuff jumps in. I haven't thought
about this for so long. He’d remember. Some fans online claim one of the vocal
tracks possibly the love letter features the following lyrics “Someday, somewhere - anywhere,
unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest
hour of your life.” It turns that line is a quote from a poet named - Pablo Neruda
While the third track, the instruction manual appears to be from a book about gemstones.
Louise post Grohl’s former girlfriend would be credited on the track as singing background
vocals. She would take to instagram earlier this year and share her story on the song saying
"The whispered section of this song was originally the dream I was having when the phone rang,"
"It was a dream about us. He later removed it and replaced with his own whispers,
one which was a love letter to me.""I sang these back-ups over the phone at 2AM after
being woken up from a deep sleep in Chicago by DG who was tracking the vocals for 'Everlong'
in LA," she said. "He wanted me to sing the doo-doo's, which were inspired by our song
'Shimmer Like a Girl.' … I wrote a harmony for the chorus and sang that too." she would say
Everlong was released as the second single from the colour and the shape in august of 1997.
The track would peak at number 3 on the alternative songs charts,
but a year later the song would get a rebirth when grohl appeared on howard stern’s radio show
and performed the song acoustically for the first time. Grohl has always credited Stern for
helping raise the song's profile recalling I never considered doing [‘Everlong’]
acoustically,” “I thought it was a Rock song. I think it was maybe the first time
we did The Howard Stern show. Howard Stern loved the song. And when you do the Howard
Stern show it’s 6 o’clock in the morning and you don’t want to touch an instrument
but he asked that I play it acoustically. “And so I did, and in a way, it gave the
song a whole new rebirth. This was long after it was released. It gave the song a whole new
life. Because I think sometimes when I do it this way (acoustically) it really does peel
back some of the bells and whistles and the other noise when it’s just the lyric and the guitar and
my voice. I think it kind of makes the song feel the way I had always wished it had felt"he'd say.
Everlong was also notable because the band would perform it live on David Letterman's show after
the late night host came back from having open heart surgery in the early 2000's and they would
perform the song live as part of David Letterman's last late night show. Everlong would be performed
on the band’s 2006 acoustic record skin and bones and the acoustic version would be re-released
on 2009’s greatest hits album. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure