Foo Fighters – "Everlong" (1997)

You've got to promise not to stop

When I say when

Dave Grohl (who was born in 1969) grew up in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC.  

When he was a freshman at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Grohl would play snippets of records by local punk bands (like the Circle Jerks and Bad Brains) before he read the morning announcements over the school’s public address system.  

Grohl spent a lot of nights at the legendary 9:30 Club in DC.  “I went to the 9:30 Club hundreds of times,” he told the Washington Post. “I spent my teenage years at the club and saw some shows that changed my life.”  (I went to the 9:30 Club two or three times.  Maybe he was there one of the nights when I was.)

Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl

Grohl joined Scream, a local hardcore punk band, when he was only 17.  Kurt Cobain saw that band play in Seattle in 1990, and invited Grohl to be Nirvana’s drummer when Scream disbanded.  

After Cobain committed suicide, Grohl thought about becoming the drummer for an existing band, but decided to start his own group instead.  The Foo Fighters’ eponymous debut album was essentially a Grohl solo album – he played all the parts on it (except for a single guitar track).

Grohl then recruited the other original members of the Foo Fighters, who toured in support of the first album for a year before going into the studio to record The Colour and the Shape, which included “Everlong.”

Louise Post of Veruca Salt

Grohl wrote “Everlong” after falling in love with Louise Post of Veruca Salt.  David Letterman says the song helped him through his 2000 heart surgery – the Foo Fighters performed it on Letterman's first show after that surgery, and returned to perform it on Letterman’s very last show in 2015.

Here’s the music video for “Everlong.”  The version of the song used in the video runs a little longer than the original version.

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