For me, my creative output has always been music. I’ve been playing guitar since seventh grade and I have been playing the keyboard for as long as I could remember. I have always been a rock’n roll type of person. I listen to soft rock, indie rock, but mostly alternative rock. A band that has always inspired me was the Foo Fighters. The Foo Fighters have been around since 1994 and is still putting out singles today. Foo Fighters is an alternative rock band that was formed by Dave Grohl, who was the drummer for Nirvana back in the day. Nirvana was a legendary band back in the day when rock music was still popular so the fact that somebody from that band started the Foo Fighters just makes me like them even more. Foo Fighters also utilize the Tension and Release technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, as heard in their song “The Pretender.” Grohl had stated that he was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking the Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose.” Another reason why they inspire me is because of the use of text and subtext in their lyrics. In their song “Rope,” the lyrics talk about wanting some rope to climb over a wall but in the subtext, it’s about climbing walls of a relationship. Here he is using a metaphor for his relationship. He has the lyrics “Give me some rope I'm coming loose, I'm hanging on you. Give me some rope I'm coming loose, I'm pulling for you now,” which in the subtext would mean that Sometimes you hang on someone, and the other time you're pulling that person up. Another song that has an excellent subtext is the song “Everlong.” This song is often interpreted to be about the drug addictions and bad habits of the late Kurt Cobain, who was in Nirvana with Dave Grohl, who wrote this song. However, according to an interview with Grohl in Mojo magazine, he wrote this song during one of the lowest points in his life over Christmas 1996. Grohl was sleeping in a sleeping bag on a friend's floor having just got divorced from photographer Jennifer Youngblood and as a consequence was homeless. On top of that Grohl had no access to his own bank account, and both his drummer, William Goldsmith, and guitarist, Pat Smear, were on the verge of quitting the Foo Fighters. In the midst of all this he wrote this song about all of that. Before I was introduced to the Foo Fighters, I had a very Subjective viewpoint on what rock’n roll was. I thought it was all hard core music that just sounded like noise but the Foo Fighters made me realize that not all of the bands are the same. I remember hearing the song “Hero” at the skating rink in middle school and I instantaneously fell in love with the song. The song is about the heroes Foo Fighters guitarist and lead singer Dave Grohl had in his life, ordinary people who did extraordinary things. The music video shows a young man rescuing many things from his home which is on fire while the band performs in it. The man's face is never shown, probably to imply that heroes are everyday people. This song is what really just gave me a more objective perspective on rock music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBjQ9tuuTJQ The Pretender
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