The Beatles song Dave Grohl said “defined everyone’s life”
Dave Grohl’s admiration for The Beatles began long before he first met Ringo Starr in 2013. From an early age, Grohl immersed himself in their music, learning to play the guitar – his first instrument – by practising alone to Beatles records. In his autobiography, Dave’s True Stories, he reminisced about spending countless hours in his bedroom, playing along to their songs on guitar and “battering my drums until my hands literally bled.”
Whenever Grohl hits a wall, struggling with the writer’s block that plagues many musicians from time to time, he turns to tried and tested Beatles tactics, especially when it comes to crafting melodies. “To me, that’s the most important part of a song,” Grohl once said. “And that comes from growing up with Beatles records and sitting down with a chord book, trying to understand why those harmonies do what they do and why the melody moves the way it does and why the composition and arrangement is like this.”
Grohl’s friendship with former Beatle Starr reached its peak in 2014 when he asked the musician to photograph the cover of Foo Fighters’ Sonic Highways. According to Grohl, the genesis of this partnership was an easy one; when prompted about the importance of taking band pictures for the album, Starr immediately came to mind, and he gave him a call.
Similarly, in a tribute video for Starr at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Grohl joined many other esteemed drummers in reflecting on the musician’s significance. “Define the best drummer in the world,” Grohl said. “Is it someone who’s technically proficient, or is it someone that sits in the song with their own feel? Ringo was the king of feel.”
In 2019, following a series of public praises over the years, the duo sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone as part of their Musicians on Musicians series. Their shared eccentricity was on display as they interviewed each other in a bathtub. Discussing the star performing on the 50th anniversary of The Ed Sullivan Show, Grohl shared: “When you stepped out to do ‘Yellow Submarine’, I honestly think that was the biggest reaction of the entire night.”
Sharing the profound impact of The Beatles on various generations of music lovers, Grohl added: “I think ‘Yellow Submarine’ has defined everyone in the world’s life at some point. I’m sitting there singing it with my five-year-old, I think for the same reason, even though we’re 45 years apart.”
In a touching display of appreciation, Starr expressed the same sentiment about the hit song. “I think I got to the kids early with that song, because around about two, two and a half, they all start: [Sings] ‘Yellow submarine’,” he said. “And all of my grandchildren have stood behind the chair I’m sitting in, at one moment in their lives, and they’re going, ‘We all live in a yellow submarine’. Like, ‘We know who you are, granddad’.”
