The Foo Fighters cover so good it made Dave Grohl want to never play it again
There’s a specific art that goes into creating a good cover song. Even though artists might try their hardest to put together something that does justice to the original recording, the magic behind cover songs is taking an ordinary piece of music and putting one’s unique stamp on it to make it sound completely different. While Dave Grohl has never been afraid to throw some covers into a Foo Fighters set, he admitted that this artist beat him at his own game.
Then again, Grohl was never one to make the most complicated arrangements in the world. Going through the band’s discography, most of the group’s best moments are when they take rock and roll building blocks and put huge arrangements around them, as evidenced by the massive sounds of ‘Everlong’ and ‘The Pretender’.
For all of the great melodic counterpoint that might go on in every song, Grohl’s primary focus has always been filling the song with roaring guitars and drums. When initially working out mixing records with Taylor Hawkins, the drummer would mention that they would always get into heated arguments about how present the drums should sound in the final mix.
Even if there were some mixing disagreements, it never came at the expense of the song. The groove was always impressively full, and one of the biggest artists of all time was taking note of it. While Foo Fighters may have rock flowing through their veins, Prince was willing to work his magic on one of their trademark hits.
When performing at the Super Bowl, Prince delivered one of the most spellbinding performances of his career, spanning every era of his catalogue with a few surprises thrown in. Between iconic performances of songs like ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, Prince also worked his way through a medley of rock favourites like the Jimi Hendrix version of ‘All Along the Watchtower’. Before he brought the house down with his performance of ‘Purple Rain’, though, Prince sprinkled pieces of ‘Best of You’ from Foo Fighters’ In Your Honor.
While Prince’s version had a few of the common elements of the original tune, no one can truly deliver the song like ‘The Purple One’, hanging on to every word he sings and shredding the guitar like it’s an extension of his body. Even though Grohl keeps ‘Best of You’ as a core part of the band’s setlist, he admits that he will never do better than Prince did to the song.
Reminiscing on watching the show live for the first time, Grohl would say that Prince did the song justice better than he could, saying, “Prince did the best version of ‘Best of You’ that anyone has ever done. After watching him do it, I’m like, ‘We can’t play that song anymore’ because we can’t do it as well as Prince”.
That wasn’t even the last time Grohl would get high praise from a rock titan. When going on tour with Bob Dylan, Grohl would eventually get called to meet with Mr. Zimmerman, only to be told that the folk-rock icon wanted the frontman to teach him how to play the song ‘Everlong’. Grohl may have one of the best reputations in rock and roll, but his songwriting prowess has been good enough to impress even the best rock stars in the world.
