All My Life Best Of You Foo Fighters

All My Life Album: One by One (2002)
Best Of You Album: In Your Honor (2005)
by Foo Fighters

"All My Life" released on September 24, 2002 as the lead single from their fourth album, One by One. The song won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance, and spent ten consecutive weeks atop the Alternative Songs chart, and peaked at number three on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. It was also a top five hit on the UK Singles Chart.

According to Dave Grohl, the song "was originally an instrumental and it went through a few different versions. At first it was really dissonant and noisy. The middle section sounded like "Wipe Out" [by the Surfaris]. It was just nuts! We recorded the instrumental and I had no idea how I was gonna sing it. Again, that was another one that our manager said, "That's the song!" And we said, "Really? You think that's the one people will like?" Grohl has said that the song is about how he enjoys performing oral sex on women. "['All My Life'] is a little dirty. I'm very fond of giving oral sex to women. It's a pleasure-giving experience - giving someone something that they'll remember for the rest of their lives, and if you do it right, they will."

The song won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance, spent ten straight weeks at number 1 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart, and peaked at number 3 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. It was also a top 5 hit on the UK Singles Chart.

It also became the 6th best performing alternative song on the Alternative Songs chart of the decade and the 10th best performing rock song on the Rock Songs chart of the decade. Dave Grohl notes that the band wanted a heavier-sounding song for a single, saying the band was "coming out with "Learn to Fly" and "Next Year" and other songs that had middle-of-the-road melodies." In September 2023, for the 35th anniversary of Alternative Songs (which by then had been renamed to Alternative Airplay), Billboard published a list of the top 100 most successful songs in the chart's history; "All My Life" was ranked at number 55.

In March 2005, Q magazine placed "All My Life" at number 94 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. It was nominated for the Kerrang! Award for Best Single.

"All My Life" is widely regarded as one of the Foo Fighters' best songs. In 2020, Kerrang ranked the song number two on their list of the 20 greatest Foo Fighters songs, and in 2021, American Songwriter ranked the song number five on their list of the 10 greatest Foo Fighters songs.

Dave Grohl has said that this is about cunnilingus, which is the female equivalent of... Listen to the lyrics, and you'll hear the innuendoes: "I love it but I hate the taste," "Over and over down on my knees."

The Foo Fighters performed this on Saturday Night Live in February 2003. Two days later, this won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance.
Said Grohl when asked about this track: "That song is a little dirty. Use your imagination!"

A version recorded during Episode 8 of Series 20 of Later... with Jools Holland on November 26, 2002, at the BBC Television Centre was released on the DVD "Later... Louder with Jools Holland". An unaired interview with Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins recorded on the same day was included as an exclusive bonus feature on the DVD.

A live version of All My Life filmed at Hyde Park on June 17, 2006, was released on the Live at Hyde Park DVD.

A live version of All My Life filmed at Wembley Stadium on June 7, 2008, was released on the Live at Wembley Stadium DVD.

All My Life appeared in the 2003 film Identity and in the 2004 film The Perfect Score. The song was also used on the trailer for the 2005 film Sahara, starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz. It was also released as downloadable content for the Rock Band video game series on August 18, 2009. The song is also playable on both Rock Revolution and Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits.

Welsh rock band Feeder, use the opening lines from All My Life as an interlude during live performances of "Lost and Found". It was also used in the promotional video for the Australian Tennis Open by Eurosport(Din).

Part of All My Life was used to highlight nominee Spider-Man in the Best Movie montage at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards.

In Chile, All My Life was featured in the children's puppet television show 31 Minutos episode "Ahorrando", while they fighting Calcetín con Rombos Man and the iron.

The All My Life video, directed by Grohl, is a performance video because he wanted to "sort of show everybody this is what it's like when we play live" as opposed to the comedic videos the band had done before such as "Big Me" and "Learn to Fly". In the video, the band (with Chris Shiflett making his first appearance in an official Foo Fighters music video) performs the song on stage in front of a video screen at The Forum in Inglewood, California, near Los Angeles (the video was actually shot inside Bakersfield's Mechanics Bank Arena, which was called Centennial Garden at the time). At the conclusion, it is revealed that they had been performing in an empty arena. In January 2021, Grohl revealed that he has dreams about still being in Nirvana and that there is an empty arena waiting for them to play.

The All My Life video was included on a DVD extra that was packaged with the CD version of the album. As of November 2023, the song has 107 million views on YouTube.

One By One was the Foo Fighters' second consecutive album to win a Grammy for Best Rock Album. It was also their first #1 album in the UK.

"Best of You" released as the lead single from the band's fifth studio album, In Your Honor (2005). Dave Grohl notes that the song was written following appearances at 2004 American presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign trail and is "about breaking away from the things that confine you". The song holds the band's highest chart peak in the U.S. (number 18), the UK (number four), and Australia (number five), and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. The song won the Kerrang! Award for Best Single. It also topped Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for four weeks and Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart for seven weeks. Following the band's performance at Live Earth, the song again entered the UK charts at number 38.

In September 2023, for the 35th anniversary of Hot Modern Rock Tracks (which by then had been renamed to Alternative Airplay), Billboard ranked "Best of You" at number 91 on its list of the 100 most successful songs in the chart's history.

The word "best" is said 40 times in this song.

"Best Of You" was one of the first compositions for In Your Honor, written by Dave Grohl in his garage following his involvement on the campaign trail for John Kerry. Once the Foo Fighters recorded a demo, they shelved it feeling they could do better. It was only brought back for further production by manager John Silva, who felt "Best of You"'s absence while listening to what they had recorded that far. Taylor Hawkins declared that it was the only song from the rock disc of that album that remained from the original sessions along with "No Way Back".

Grohl stated that while many of his songs start with the music and lyrics come last, the words for "Best of You" were fast to write. Given the Kerry rallies inspired him to do "all these songs about breaking away from the things that confine you", thus came "a song of resistance. It’s about the refusal to be taken advantage of by something that’s bigger than you, or someone you’re in love with. It’s the fight in the face of adversity." Grohl added that "Most people think it's a love song but it's meant to be more universal, which I think is one of the reasons so many people sing along when we play it." The composition had no interest in "an interesting melody", instead featuring "a rhythm that we'd never really used on any of the other albums." The focus was on a strong performance, where Grohl could "scream the whole way through". During the first rehearsals, Grohl came close to injuring his throat and felt afraid of being unable to perform live, but eventually considered he could pull it off as "when you go out and sing words from the heart, you scream twice as hard.”

Mark Pellington directed the video, which took on new meaning when his wife died in 2004. Pellington, who also directed the video for Pearl Jam's "Jeremy," took the reigns on this one, as the band was happy to let him work his magic. "Dave Grohl trusted the emotion and instinct behind it," he said.

The music video was directed by Mark Pellington, best known for his work on the video for "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam. He was inspired by the death of his wife a few months prior to the shoot, and was drawn to the song's notion of dealing with pain in life.[10]

The video for Best of You features the band playing on top of the abandoned Linda Vista Community Hospital. Along with the band's scenes are clips that show pain, depression, or anger including:

Children playing alone or with each other, one scene shows one girl hugging another.
A car crash
A lion pouncing on its prey, which is a vulture
A snake attacking a rodent
A new born baby sleeping
A zebra kicking another zebra behind itself
A snarling wolf
Crash test dummies being crushed by a car crash test
Men and women showing affection for each other.
A nuclear explosion
A baby crying
A Mother and child laying on the bed
A wall covered in writing, including the phrases "Help me", "Pain Feels Good" and "They all died in the fire I started."

Prince performed this at the 2007 Super Bowl halftime show. The Foo Fighters, who recorded a cover of Prince's "Darling Nikki," had no idea he was going to play the song, but were thrilled. Dave Grohl said: "Having been a massive Prince fan my whole life, I was flattered beyond words. What an honor to be covered by one of your heroes."

Grohl wrote this while he was supporting Democratic Party candidate John Kerry on the 2004 Presidential campaign.
Grohl told Mojo magazine that he didn't rate the original demo of this and had to be persuaded by his manager John Silva to put the song on the album.

This was one of five songs Foo Fighters played at the Live Earth concert held a Wembley Stadium in London on July 7, 2007. The concert was a benefit to support efforts to fight climate change. Foo Fighters, under orders by their manager to "be better than Metallica," delivered a rousing set that renewed interest in this song. The following week, the song was downloaded so many times that it re-entered the UK chart at #38.

"Best of You" is widely regarded as one of the Foo Fighters' best songs. Kerrang and American Songwriter both ranked the song number four on their lists of the greatest Foo Fighters songs.

Dave Grohl – vocals, rhythm guitar
Chris Shiflett – lead guitar
Nate Mendel – bass
Taylor Hawkins – drums