"February Stars" by Foo Fighters
Written by Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear
Produced by Gil Norton
Released on The Colour and the Shape (May 20, 1997)
I've been sitting on this post for awhile. I'm not sure why I haven't been writing and posting, but just as this blog and project were becoming routine, I let it slip away. So now the post I drafted has been sitting here. And now Taylor Hawkins, Foo Fighters' drummer has unexpectedly died.
Death is often on my mind. The answer to the great question of what happens after death has haunted me for most of my life. When I was younger it was easy to accept what my parents and my church had told me, but as I have gotten older and felt the weight of my mortality on my corporeal frame, I have wondered and doubted and discussed this issue.
And as I think and pray about death, I frequently feel unsure of myself and how to respond to friends who lose loved ones. There's no easy answer; no easy way to respond and express my feelings. I often think of a letter that was written to me by a close friend after my father died. She had also lost her father, and that note meant a lot to me, partially because I knew it was genuine and that she actually knew what I was going through. I held on to that letter for a long time, but I lost it at some point during one of my many moves of my itinerant youth. When a friend has a parent die, I sometimes try to find that letter to remind myself of what I should or could say. But I still haven't found that letter, and I usually feel like I can never find the right words. I still try.
Yesterday when I saw the announcement from Foo Fighters' Twitter account I was left with an interesting choice. Do I "like" the post? That didn't feel right. While I appreciated hearing the news and want to show my own support, it felt weird to "like" such tragic news. Online social media makes it easier to share things, but it also just gives me more ways to fail to know how to respond to death.
The first memory I have of Foo Fighters was during an episode of Beavis and Butthead. They were doing their bit where they watch music videos and make silly commentary. Beavis and Butthead were arguing about whether the lead singer of Foo Fighters was the drummer from Nirvana. I remember thinking that of course it wasn't the drummer from Nirvana, it probably just looked a little like him, and they were just making fun of that. But then I saw him, there singing and playing guitar: It was Dave Grohl. I had no idea that he had started a new band, that he could sing or play the guitar, or that he was actually good enough at those things to make something of himself without Kurt Cobain.
For a long time, Foo Fighters were just Dave Grohl to me. Yeah, Pat Smear was there off and on, and I liked his guitar playing and attitude, but it was Dave's band. Sometimes it takes something tragic like a death to come to terms with a fact that I chose to ignore but that was so obvious for so long: There is no Foo Fighters without Taylor Hawkins. Dave was a drummer, but he was never Foo Fighters' drummer. Taylor was one of those many drummers out there who clearly enjoyed drumming more than most people enjoy doing anything. Dave may have founded Foo Fighters, but Foo Fighters was more than Dave. And Taylor was a big reason why.
Over the years, I always enjoyed listening to Foo Fighters' music on the radio, but I somehow never actually bought any of their albums until just a few years ago. When I used to go to the record store, there was always something else I was there to get, and I didn't have money to buy a Foo Fighters' CD too. So I contented myself with hearing them on the radio from time to time (and listening to my illegally downloaded copy of "Everlong" on my old iPod).
When I finally bought The Colour and the Shape, I was impressed. They actually had other good songs. In fact, they had some other great songs that never got played or released as singles.
"February Stars" is particularly great. I love the quiet first half of the song and the way it explodes into the loud coda. Unfortunately it doesn't lend itself well to my typical playlist classifications. Sure, it's in my general heavily played playlist, but I also have a "chill" playlist and a "get pumped" playlist, and I can't really see how I can fit this song into either one. The first half is chill and the ending could get me pumped up, but I haven't figured out how to put half the song into a playlist (nor would I want to).
That doesn't make it any less of a great song, it just means that it'll chill forever in my heavily played playlist, and I'll have to get pumped every time I hear it there.
Right now, "February Stars" by Foo Fighters is, probably, my 45th favorite song of all time.
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