Dave Grohl names the heaviest song he ever wrote: “Definitely one of my favourite songs”
There’s no roadmap for where a group is supposed to go once they become famous. For most acts, the minute that they start seeing success is usually the kiss of death, and they have to spend the rest of their time in the spotlight either replicating it or chasing their tail, trying to find something even better than they have in the tank. Dave Grohl knew that it wasn’t going to be easy working at half-capacity in Foo Fighters, but he knew he hit on something close to the bone on ‘Aurora’.
Because coming out of The Colour and the Shape, Foo Fighters could have been dead in the water for all they knew. Yes, Grohl still was the driving force behind the band, but since Pat Smear and Franz Stahl would quit and be fired on guitar, and William Goldsmith left the drum stool open for Taylor Hawkins, it wasn’t exactly too late for him to reshape everything and move on to a solo career.
Instead of throwing in the towel, Grohl knew that he only needed to regroup. After crashing in his home in Virginia, he figured the next best thing would be for him, Hawkins, and bassist Nate Mendel to head into the studio and hash out whatever they were feeling at the time. Although ‘Learn to Fly’ and ‘Breakout’ would become the breezy music they needed, ‘Aurora’ was a different beast.
They had already started flirting with different ideas on ‘Generator’, but this feels like the shimmery pop-rock song that Bono somehow didn’t get to first. Although Grohl was never the sunshine-pop type, he sold the song better than almost any teen idol could back in the day, especially when keeping up with the delayed guitar in the background.
Outside of the chorus, this was the song that truly solidified the group as a trio. While they were never going to go the way of The Police and form a new group, ‘Aurora’ was where everyone contributed to a track for the first time, including the most gripping lyrics Grohl had written up to that point.
After finally working his way out of the interband drama, Grohl thought ‘Aurora’ was among the best things he had come up with for Foo Fighters, saying, “’Aurora’ is definitely one of my favourite songs that we’ve ever come up with. Lyrically, it’s just kind of a big question mark, but the words sound good, and it’s a nostalgic look back at Seattle and the life I once had. That song actually questions the meaning of life, probably. It’s probably the heaviest thing I’ve ever written.”
While the lyrics are admittedly candid for Grohl, it actually makes perfect sense after hearing that Aurora refers to Aurora Avenue in Seattle. For all of the great memories he had in Seattle with Nirvana, this feels like a fond farewell, or at least the end of an era, to his time in the Pacific Northwest. He had turned his life around ever since being behind the drumkit, but while there was life after There is Nothing Left to Lose, it was never going to be the same going back to his old stomping grounds.
