The two Foo Fighters songs Dave Grohl hates: “It doesn’t really count”
Making mistakes is an essential part of the artistic process. Even the most experienced and esteemed songwriters have made their fair share of wrong turns, penning songs or even entire albums that they’re not particularly proud of. Artists with lengthy music careers, in particular, are bound to make the odd blunder, and former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is no exception.
Grohl is one of the most revered names in the rock realm. He first found fame amidst the emergence of the grunge scene in the 1990s, sitting behind the drum-kit for genre pioneers Nirvana. He provided the thunderous drums for classics like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Come As You Are’, becoming an alternative rock icon in the process.
After frontman Kurt Cobain passed away in 1994, Grohl took a step back from music. He struggled to find a way to continue without Cobain, performing short stints with other bands before eventually founding the Foo Fighters. Rather than sitting behind the drumkit, this time, Grohl took centre stage, providing his vocals and guitar talents to the new band.
As the driving creative force behind Foo Fighters, Grohl has penned and performed some of their most iconic songs, including ‘Everlong’ and ‘My Hero’. Between Nirvana and Foo Fighters, he has undoubtedly secured his place in rock history and is tied to some of the genre’s most beloved hits. But even a songwriter as successful as Grohl has creative regrets.
During a conversation with Kerrang, Grohl looked back fondly on his third record with Foo Fighters, 1999’s There Is Nothing Left to Lose. “At that point, it was me, Taylor and Nate [Mendel],” he remembered, “and we were best friends. It was one of the most relaxing times of my whole life.” Still, there was one song that the frontman didn’t seem quite so keen on.
Just before the album hit record store shelves, Foo Fighters unveiled ‘Learn to Fly’ as the lead single, a fairly run-of-the-mill alternative-rock track that found Grohl “looking to the sky” to save him. The song immediately won over audiences, even finding its way into the charts, but Grohl wasn’t quite as happy with the song. In fact, he declared it one of his least favourite tracks on the record.
‘Learn to Fly’ isn’t the only one of Grohl’s songs that he has retroactively panned. He also once shared his intense dislike for ‘Oh, George’, an album-only track from the band’s self-titled debut that paid tribute to Beatles guitarist George Harrison. Grohl once described it as his “least favourite song,” though he added that their first record was made “so quickly that it doesn’t really count.”
Although Grohl isn’t too proud of the track, it provides an early glimpse of Foo Fighters in the making, the beginnings of their sound, melding together Grohl’s grunge roots with new forms of alternative rock. It certainly isn’t one of his best creations, and it’s completely eclipsed by the hits in his catalogue, but it doesn’t necessarily deserve to be completely written off.
Almost every musician will make at least one creative misstep over the course of their career, and most will make more than one. Grohl is no exception, proving that you can hone a wildly successful career and still make a couple of songs that you regret.
