what's going on my fellow rock n' rollers.
Now this was a question Dave Grohl got asked a lot when Foo Fighters released their first
several albums and that question was is this song about kurt corbain.
And Grohl's been pretty elusive when commenting about specific songs telling an interviewer
"I've been asked this about every song i've written.
Ithink the most important thing about writing songs is to refute the specifics because that
takes away the opportunity for some listeners to relate to the song he'd say.
Now the first song some fans and some journalists believed was about Kurt Cobain was the song
"I'll Stick Around"From the band's debut album.
The line I Don't Owe You Anything had some fans thinking is was at directed at Cobain
and Grohl would actually sit down with Rolling Stone Magazine in 1995 to clear things up
telling the publication "The only reason i wanted to do an interview was because as i
was singing i don't owe you anything i realized that people might think it was about kurt
and it would break y heart to think that people are under that impression.
That was my biggest fear and besides that anything else is trival and stupid and i knew
that while i was recording it that it was probably my strongest song i've ever written
because it was the one song i actually meant and felt emotionally he'd conclude.
Now personally I've laways thought I'll stick around was about Courtney Love with the line
how can it be i'm the only one who see's your rehearsed insanity.
Now when the band's second record the Colour and the Shape came out there was many people
who asked Grohl about the single My Hero and whether it was about Cobain but Grohl would
reveal it was about the common man being a hero and this was something widely shown in
the music video.
And in 2008 when then presidential candidate John McCain used the song for his campaign,
Grohl and the band were pretty unhappy about their music being used without their permission
& sent a cease and desist letter to the campaign &even put out a statement reading "the saddest
thing about this is that my hero was written as a celebration about the common man and
his extraordinary potential.
To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original
sentiment of the lyrics just tarnishes the song."
Now in ordre to see the first song Grohl wrote about Cobain you have to look at the band's
2005 record in Your honor, which is made up of two discs.
There was a hard rock disc and an acoustic disc.
And the song i'm referring to is friend of a friend, which is found on the acoustic record
and the song dates back to 1990 and was written by Grohl during the early days he spent with
the members of Nirvana.
He had recently moved to Seattle to join the band and the song was written in Cobain's
Olympia apartment on his acoustic guitar and describes Grohl's first impression of his
bandmates and it paints a pretty grim picture.
Grohl would describe finding Grohl's guitar in the apartment with the lyrics "he plays
an old guitar with a coin found by the phone it was his friend's guitar that he played."
Now Grohl also sings about Cobain's drinking problem with the lyrics "he thinks he drinks
too much cos when he tells his two best friends i think i drink too much, no one speak."Now
Grohl had actually written the song in private in 1990 and released it two years later on
1992 on his pocketwatch cassette tape under the psuedonym Late on Simple Machine Records
& Grohl would end up recording the song for a BBC program in 1997 but it wasn't until
2005 when he openly talked about the song telling Q magazine "I'd just moved in with
Kurt.
I Didn't know anybody.
I had a drum set packed in one box and flew up there.
I would stay up until the son came up and sleep all day.
Olympia Washington is depressing enough and i was living with this person that i didn't
know.
But he had a 4 track so I wrote songs Marigold and Friend of a Friend.
It was an observation of Kurt and Krist and I.
The song would also serve as the first song Grohl ever wrote on acoustic guitar as he
would reveal to guitar world magazine.
Now Grohl was also asked by Q Magazine if he ever played the song for Kurt Cobain &he
simply responded "no i don't think i did.
Probably not."
While it wasn't a tribute to his bandmates and more of an observation, the song provides
a snapshot of a band in time that was on the verge of superstardom before Nirvana started
a musical revolution in the early 90's.
The song would also appear on Foo Fighters 2005 live record 'Skin and Bones.'
So that does it for today's video guys.Thanks for watching.
Let me know if you think any other songs foo fighters wrote are about kurt cobain in the
comments section below.
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