“I still get choked up”: Dave Grohl on the most meaningful Foo Fighters song
No one can ever truly know the meaning behind any famous song. Even if the message is as clear as day in the lyrics, there will always be those few choice lines that artists keep only for themselves, and no one is ever going to put their fingers on them. Although Dave Grohl had admitted in the past that most of the early Foo Fighters songs didn’t necessarily mean anything, he knew that ‘These Days’ had hit on something a lot more potent than he ever imagined.
Going into the recording of Wasting Light, the band were already due for a bit of a reinvention. There was already great material to be found on Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, but since they had spent years fine-tuning their blend of acoustic and electric songs, there’s not really much further that anyone can go from there when it’s time to write a completely new record.
So now that they had hit the ceiling, Grohl knew the next best thing was to strip things back and get raw. No more going to ritzy studios in California to cut a record. This would be made strictly out of his garage, and that meant bringing the entire extended Foo Fighters family into his house to get just the right sounds.
However, before they had even played a note, there was already added pressure. While Pro Tools could have easily fixed anything that they needed to put down, the idea of making the record on tape was going to be daunting. For all of the mistakes that can be fixed on a computer, imagine having to play an entire song, knowing that no one can go back and just fix a bum note in post-production.
The band played their hearts out, but Grohl was looking to channel his emotions into every one of his songs. ‘Dear Rosemary’ was practically a glorified duet and co-write with Bob Mould, and regardless of the rumours, ‘I Should Have Known’ was always going to have the dark shadow of Grohl’s time in Nirvana looming over it.
Compared to the other tracks on the record, though, ‘These Days’ is one of his most visceral lyrics. There’s still that anthemic chorus, but the core piece of the song is about someone dealing with regrets they’ve had in their lives and whether they can make peace with them by the time they reach their final hour.
Grohl was always looking to push his songwriting forward, but he didn’t expect to hit on something so powerful with this tune, later recalling, “We have our staples, the ones that make the place go bananas. For me, there was a song off [2011’s Wasting Light] called ‘These Days’ that’s one of the most meaningful songs I’ve ever written. Every night I sing it I still get choked up.”
But the reason it works so well might be because of its universality. While the lyrics can be a bit abstract at times, Grohl hits on that comfortable middle ground of being vague enough to have everyone else fill in the gaps for him.
That way, the song’s meaning isn’t just about one piece of Grohl’s history. It could be about the fallout of Nirvana, starting to strike out on his own in Foo Fighters, or in defence of his grief over Taylor Hawkins’s death now, but the character in this song is still working as best they can to try and survive from day to day.
