As the group aged, especially Dave, he had many more
experiences than when he was making the transition from Nirvana to the Foo
Fighters. He is now married with a
little girl to take care of. He
has seen his friends come to the verge of death because of the rock and roll
lifestyle. His band mates decided to
leave the band and some were forced out of the band. All of these things influenced him in one way or
another. The music his changed in
some ways, but in essence it is the same with the same band, but the music
videos tell another story. They
show a side of the band and Dave that the music can only hint at.
It took some time for them to transition out of the
adolescent stage of joke videos and gimics, although that was not completely
purged. For the large part the videos began to show a more introspective and
artistic view of the music. Perhaps even the root meanings of the music changed
and Dave grew somber in his recollection of everything that had happened. Rather than just showing a funny story
or scene they attempted to give us a glimpse into what dave grohl was really
thinking about and they things that he hoped people would remember of him. They
showed in us the beliefs that he has of how to deal with the problems of life.
They begin to revert back to the seriousness of Cobain, without the dire
outlook. Even after all these years they still know how to make us laugh
while teaching us an important lesson.
Video # 8 – Pretender - 2007
One of the most popular Foo Fighters songs, it has a lot of
meaning to it and can be interpreted in many different ways by the listeners.
In an interview with Dave, he mentioned it was about political unrest and
people not getting what they have been promised. He also said that he would prefer that people had their own
ideas and interpretation of what the song means to them. Unlike most of the
videos from their earlier years the music video for this song is much more
serious. It is obvious that Dave
is changing and maturing from the way that all his videos were at the beginning
of the Foo Fighters. The video begins
with the band playing infront of a massive red wall, infront of just open
space. Out of the darkness infront
of the band appears a lone, riot officer.
The single officer multiplies into dozens and soon there is a line
challenging the band. The climax
of the video comes when the police begin to charge the band. The band stands their ground and
continues playing as the wall behind then bursts and covers them with a shower
of red liquid. As the red settles
all the police are gone. The
police are the authority and trying to stop what the band is doing. They are telling us that even under the
oppostition, you should stand your ground. The red could mean the bad deeds of the authority that end
up protecting the band. Dave finally begins to spread his beliefs and ideas to
the audience through the videos.
Video # 9 – Best of You - 2005
Unlike the videos of the early Foo Fighters this one has a
very abstract feeling to it. There
is no official meaning given by the band for this song, which actually gives it
more meaning to the average listener because they can now invent their own
meaning. This song in one way or
another has affected many people and coming out with a specific meaning for it
would detract from their own interpretation and how it affected them. The video is a random feed of unrelated
videos strung together with the band cut in between. The meaning is very clouded, but unlike the earlier videos
it is much more serious, causing us to think about ourselves and think deeper
than just a funny storyline. The video shows all of the random clips of nature
and people in different situations to get us thinking about what the best we
have to offer is and are we willing to offer that up to someone else. It is a great song and the video
follows that up with forcing us to enter into deep introspection.
Video # 10 – Walk - 2011
The final video of this collection shows an overall circle and return to
the beginning while still retaining the lessons that had been learned. Walk was a hit on the newest album of
the Foo Fighters. To record the album they went back to the basics and instead
of putting all the sound through a computer, they recorded it directly to tape
in Dave’s garage. The entire album
is summed up in this one song. Fed
up with how the music industry is going they “learned to walk again” and went
back to the basics. The video
follows Dave from a congested roadway where he gets fed up and breaks
convention by leaving his car and walking. In the video he encounters several
situation where the conventional rules or peoples attitudes annoy him and he
breaks out of the established mold and acts irrationally. The interesting thing is that you can
find congruency between the earlier videos in how he lashes out against those
who annoy or threaten him, as well as a comedy to the video. This video combines the aspects of
comedy with an underlying lesson for those who are watching and listening. He wants people to quit being fake and
following the crowd. Everybody
would be better served reinventing their methods and learn to walk in another
way.
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