Music

And Then the Latest Foo Fighters Song Enters Our Ears And Brains

We can stop worrying for a while whether Rock n’Roll will survive or not

I started a recent article with the ancient wisdom: "I grew up on rock n’roll and I am going to grow old on it, as well.”

It works here too.

Like probably a lot of people in my demographic, I remember my younger days with what I’ll charitably call better music.

Or maybe it’s better days with younger music. Six of one, half dozen of the other, I suppose.

The 1990s were for sure my salad days, but I started making musical decisions for myself in the early 80s, and I relate strongly to the 70s, perhaps because that’s the decade I was born in, and the musical formation started taking place in my mother’s record collection.

In the other direction, I made it about four or five years into the new millennium when I stopped listening to new music. Sure, when my favourites from the preceding decades would put something out, I’d pay attention and still buy it or later download it.

I still do, and thanks again, Depeche Mode.

I still go to their shows now that everyone is touring again: Crowded House last month, Placebo this weekend, and Social Distortion in July. I’ll never get enough of sharing a space with like-minded people, watching and listening to our heroes for a few hours.

But — big surprise — that was right around the time I turned 30 that I lost interest in really getting into new music. My friend bag was already full too; ain’t it funny how that happens? You put all this time in your younger days putting effort into “being into” music and relating to like-minded people. Then you get to a certain point in life, and say, “that’s enough, I have all the information that I need.”

It doesn’t hit you until later that you may have closed yourself off to some pretty good things. It’s right around the time you hear yourself preface a comment with a phrase like “back in my day.”

I think the truth is that new music doesn’t speak to me like the music of 20 or 30 years ago continues to. But it’s not the music’s fault; it’s a function of the stage of life I’m in.

But again, like many people in my demographic, I have concerns about the future of the music I love. The type of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums, and vocal (and ok, maybe a keyboard if it has to be) noise that I’ve always been into is teetering on its last legs, according to enough of the music press that I read.

I sometimes wonder if rock n’ roll is on the way out. Or if it’s already gone.

And then the Foo Fighters reappear, truly like a phoenix from the ashes, to say, ” Hang on just one goddamn minute; nobody is going anywhere.”

Soon it’ll be thirty years since Kurt Cobain died and Dave Grohl stepped out from behind the drums to put Foo Fighters together in 1995. Three decades of unapologetic in-your-face sound explosion mixed with pure harmonies later, they are about to put out their 11th album, “But Here We Are.” It will be their first since the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins, who shuffled off this mortal coil just over a year ago.

If the first single, Rescued, is any indication, then the event will inform the album. But not so as to stand still in their grief. Not these guys.

You should listen to it if you haven’t already:

“Are you feeling / what I’m feeling / Is this happening now?”

I don’t know about you, but I can feel their anguish and exhaustion. They are still as raw and muscular as ever, but they are also beat up, and all they want to do to deal with it is make more music. What else to do but go back twenty years to the sounds of their earlier albums, “The Color and the Shape” (1997), “There is Nothing Left to Lose” (1999), and “One By One” (2002)?

To reach deep, to find those power chords, for Grohl to find the scream in his voice and leaven it with his warm lower vocal range. The one that wraps you up in its power and confusion and makes you think that you could also belt this one out — those parts, at least.

He wants to be alive; he wants to come back. He doesn’t want it to be hopeless. He wants to be solemn and remember, but he wants to do it with an open heart. There is still more to come, even though they all know this could be it, and it could end at any time.

Dave Grohl, finding himself in the midst of death again. And yet….life. And a sound that is unequivocally alive and says, “Rescue me; it’s going to be alright.”

“We’re all free, to some degree / to dance under the lights / I’m just waiting to be rescued / Bring me back to life / Kings and queens and in-betweens / We all deserve the right / We’re all just waiting to be rescued tonight.”