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Everlong is such a classic song but now as 27 years old adult, the lyrics have a lot deeper meaning.
Foo Fighters was the first band I was ever introduce to, I’ve listen to them for almost 20 years, so that’s why in this episode we explore my past and it’s history with the band.
Show Notes
“Show Notes” are my raw general thoughts about said artist and usually how I roughly structure the episode. An episode may or may not include all of the following details.
Episode 2: Everlong & foo fighters
Now this episode doesn’t really cover the music, lyrics or Foo Fighters exactly but a brief moment of childhood that forever shaped me because of someone else’s love for music.
Now my introduction to Foo Fighters is a very fortunate one. When I was in 2nd grade I moved from Pittsburgh PA, to Knightdale NC. This surely was a defining moment for my entire family but certain for me. I went from being the star child in school, bright future, even being written about for my art in newpapers (but then again I was just a kid so if I pooped in my hand and called it art people entertained the idea). To hearing “rock music”, learning about skateboarding and thinking for yourself striving to be a cool kid.
Moving to North Carolina was started in an apartment complex for a very short period of time but that year or how ever short it was completely changed my course of life. Like I said I went from being everyones ideal child to for the first time noticing, cool kids vs nerdy kids and caring about it. So much so that, that in a single year I went from straight A’s to being a C/D student.
I started caring more about my art, music and thinking instead of listening or caring about school.
And I wanted to be a cool kid. Fortunately in my neighbourhood I met my first skateboarder, guitar player and most of all music lover. At the sweet age of 9 years old I was introduce in music in a different light. A light of here’s a band, they sound cool, wait their lyrics mean something to me and I loved it. I never wanted to be a rock star but I knew skating, drawing and listening to music was more interesting than caring about school.
I remember sleeping over one night playing Roller Coaster tycoon until the wee hours of the night listening to Foo Fighters with my friend Frosty and him talking about how he was going to be a rock start. Soon after my first album I ever received but really every listened to from start to finish was “There’s Nothing left to lose”. And from that moment on I remember carrying around my janky CD player with that album everywhere I went.
I remember how I was constantly looking up to Frosty for the independence and original thinking he had at our age. Not only did he like killer music, he played awesome guitar, drew amazingly but also introduced me to my second love of my life, skateboarding. Actually, Frosty seemed so much from the future because of his “maturity” that he even drew something that resembled 9/11. He was more than a best friend but like a hero to me. There’s so much of my being of who I am today because of that one year of living in an apartment complex.
Another memory that stands out from this album was going to church camp in a bus and it’s storming, raining hard dark, and I’m singing to my self Stacked Actors thinking about how lyrics like “will they cry when they all die blonde” actually meaning something. It was poetic, descriptive and what was a stacked actors? I knew what a rafter was but I always imagined a wear-house full of “fake” dead people, as in people not true to themselves. The memory is so clear to me, the way my head laid on the seat, my cuz sitting next to me, the darkness outside, and I was 9 years old.
So Foo fighters obviously has a special meaning to me. I never owned “The color and the shape” but I remember Frosty playing it often and loving the sound of Everlong. and it wasn’t much later that I noticed that Everlong pretty much summed up my 90s childhood.
That introduction of a peaceful melody following by hard hitting guitar. Then an upbeat drum comes in and we are singing “hello”. I like to think this song literally was made for me to connect to that inner child I’ve so long ago lost. The “I’ve been waiting for you” is my younger self saying “hey dude, it’s been a while.” Come hang out a while and waste some time with me.
I have this weird need to not let go of my childhood. Like I don’t want to lose my youth, I don’t want to stop skateboarding, I don’t want one day to say fuck music these days suck and stay stuck in the music I grew up with. “If everything could ever feel this real forever, If anything could ever be this good again” is literally how it feels to wake up in the morning look in the mirror and see the face I’ve grown into and how I some times wished I was a kid again.
I wasted my college life being I don’t even know. Anti social and feeling entitled to the point of barely having friends. And during that time all I did was dwell on my childhood and how much I wish I could get back to that point. Luckily, I’ve found that if you make experiences for self, you’ll look back and think those were good times, I miss those but I can’t wait for my new ones. But when you close yourself off and let the boundaries haunt you mentally you lose out on life and of course everything that was happier in your past feels better than where you are now.
“Slow how you wanted it to be”
“And I wonder when I sing along with you”
So “The only thing I’ll ever ask of you, You gotta promise not to stop when I say When” is a great line to live by if you get blocked my depression or just whatever in life. If I just stop when my mind said to I’ve seen the darkness it brought and I need to motivate myself and push myself to not do that now. I like to think that childhood John is still dreaming about how I can be anything I want to and I’m not going to let that kid down. And originally writing this script I start to break down for a second crying saying to myself, fuck dude you fucking awesome. I love my self and getting to the point of self love so foreign when you don’t love yourself for so long.
Evergreen Terrace – cover
So thank you foo fighters and Everlong.
If you enjoyed this episode and this is something you dig, listening to me talk about a song or band reflects who I am or a moment in my life, I appreciate the time you spent with me to listen.
I hope to come out with more insight to my life, more insight to music and their lyrics and that’s what this podcast is.
