‘Cloudspotter’: The song Dave Grohl called a pessimist anthem
Many rock bands are done a disservice when it comes to the emotion behind a lot of their songs. When we consider the likes of the Rolling Stones, Guns N’ Roses and Foo Fighters, we think about the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle that so often follows screeching vocals and distorted guitars around. While this is certainly an aspect of these bands, they are also capable of writing devastatingly upsetting songs, and yet we often don’t appreciate that.
When we go to rock shows, we throw devil horns in the air, drink beer and bang our heads. That’s fine, because that’s a huge part of what a rock show is, but when you pierce the veil on a lot of rock songs, you realise that a lot of the music many of these bands play is straight from the heart, it’s just covered in distortion and flamboyance.
One of the clearest examples of this when it comes to Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters is their recent album, But Here We Are, which is a gut-piercing rock-infused record, as we have come to expect from Foo Fighters but is also a sad record that covers the death of Grohl’s Mum and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. While the band don’t deviate from making a classic rock album, they also wear their heart on their sleeve and write from an emotional place.
‘The Teacher’ is one of the standout songs on this album, as it’s one of the longest tracks Foo Fighters ever recorded and an ode to Grohl’s mother. “I was with her for all the time leading up to her passing,” he said when discussing the track, “Everyday during that period, I would write something on the guitar, because I felt that if I didn’t have that release, I would explode. I would spend the day at the hospital and then try to translate it musically – with no clear intention of what I was trying to achieve. I was finding these chords and progressions that mirrored the way that I felt.”
It turns out that when it comes to emotional music, however, it’s not just real-world problems that Grohl can write about, but their mere apprehension of problems that haven’t actually happened. He did this in 2011 on the song ‘Cloudspotter’, which was a track dedicated to anxiety and the feeling that something bad might happen despite the fact that there is no evidence that said bad thing will happen.
The title comes from the idea that even on the sunniest of days, there are people out there who will stare at the sky and look for clouds. It’s easy to find problems when there aren’t any if you’re willing to look hard enough for them.
Grohl described this track as “An anthem for the pessimist,” adding, “I’m the type of person that says, ‘OK, let’s figure this out,’ if I’m presented with a problem. A cloudspotter is somebody who finds the conflict or difficulty in everything and has no hope. It’s kind of a twisted love song for someone with this pessimistic, negative outlook on everything.”
