Foo Fighters - Everlong

"Breathe out so I can breathe you in."

Album: The Color and the Shape [2nd album]
Recorded: Los Angeles, California
Genre: Hard Rock
Album Release: May 20th 1997
Single Release: August 18th 1997 [2nd single]
Length: 4.10
Producer: Gil Norton
Vocalist: Dave Grohl [age 28]
Label: Capitol Records

Music Video


Live from 1999 on 2 Meter Sessions


Live from 2006

Charts, Sales & Streams

Spotify: 1,110,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 498,000,000 +
Australia (albums): #5 (certified platinum)
Canada (albums): #8
Germany (albums): Certified platinum
Italy (albums): Certified platinum
UK (singles): #18
UK (albums): #3 (certified platinum)
US (albums): #10 (certified platinum)
Grammy Awards 1998: Best Rock Album Nominee (losing to John Fogerty)
MTV Music Video Awards Nominee 1998: Best Rock Video (losing to Aerosmith)
Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2021): #409

Credits

Bass, drums, guitar

Details

• This is the first record made by Foo Fighters as a full band. The self titled debut album is essentially a Dave Grohl solo album.
  
• Grohl had previously released three albums as a part of Nirvana.
• Foo was a name used by the American military to describe a UFO.
  
• The music video is an homage to The Evil Dead and is directed by the Frenchman Michel Gondry who would go on to make features films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).
• The song was written by Grohl during the Christmas of 1996 while he was staying at a friends house following his divorce. Grohl has described the moment as one of the lowest in his life. He had no wife and no money, his band were on the verge of breaking up and he was sleeping on the floor at his friends house. Grohl must have had some way to access his Nirvana money but that wouldn't make for as good a story.
  
• Dave Grohl played every instrument on the demo.
  
• Everlong is a love song about Veruca Salt singer Louise Post. On the song Post provides additional vocals.
  
• “One of the things that’s a stand-out in my memory was a little party we had just at the end, when all the mixing had been done and it had been sequenced. There was a whole bunch of our mates over and part of you is just looking at how they’re reacting. What’s the worst thing in the world? You’re playing somebody a new song and twenty seconds into it they start talking, about themselves, usually. Well, this was 40 minutes of just silence and mouths open. That, for me, was a very powerful moment. It was like, whoa, it’s a goodie.” (Robin Guthrie)

Artwork